REINER KLATZ was a man undone.
He sat locked inside Erin Brandt’s front room. Goscha the maid was upstairs somewhere, packing Erin’s belongings. Her wailing drifted through the ceiling overhead as though Erin’s specter had already arrived to take up ghoulish residence. Newspapers were spread about the table and sofa and floor in devastating array. The tabloids had used police photographs for their front covers. They and the headlines were fists that beat him almost senseless.
Erin’s word, her mood, her every thought had been so tightly woven into the fabric of his day that he now had neither direction nor purpose. His mind hunted like a frantic little animal for the familiar, finding empty solace in meaningless memories.
He recalled the thrill he had felt at discovering Erin’s pure sound was not based upon perfect pitch, which was a source of false pride for many divas. Instead, Erin had the much rarer quality of perfect relative pitch. Perfect pitch meant the ability to remember a note and hit it perfectly, first time, every time. But some of the world’s greatest orchestras held to the centuries-old tradition of tuning a quarter note low or high. This meant the diva was forced to perform in what was for her slightly off-pitch. Erin, on the other hand, took her pitch from the oboe used to tune the instruments. Right first time, every time. So rare a quality it was seldom even discussed.
His mind scampered further, recalling her pattern before every performance. She liked to arrive at the concert hall very early and give the music a final study. Dinner prior to an evening performance was an apple and a few sips of champagne. An iced bucket was always there in her dressing room. Always. She rarely drank more than a single glass, but she insisted on a full bottle. She considered such touches her due. Her voice coach arrived then and together they did a major warm-up. Then she was fitted into the opera’s first costume, assisted only by one trusted dresser, for it was during this period that she also moved into character. Then the final warm-up, another few sips of champagne, and up to the stage. No calming exercises for Erin. This was time for energy and excitement. Reiner sat and recalled what it was like to move alongside Erin Brandt as she headed for the stage. Her focus was so tight that the rest of the world faded into meaningless shadows. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. Her world was ahead of her, her life, her entire existence. The only reality she ever cared about waited just beyond where the stage manager stood and smiled the welcome she did not see, his hand timed to open the curtain on the conductor’s downbeat. Then she could step forward, and drink in the lights and the music and the adoration. Then she knew the rapture of being worshiped.
Goscha’s shriek ripped through his reverie. Reiner winced at the impact of returning to the here and now, with the photographs and the headlines shrilling that his life was over. Stabbed eleven times. Brutal murder. They might as well have plunged the knife into him, he was that dead.
The housemaid’s cries were directly overhead now. But it was more than her proximity that heightened the noise. She was in the baby’s room. Reiner stared up at the ceiling with dawning realization. Goscha was not weeping over her deceased mistress. She cried for that cursed child.
Even this heightened caterwauling could not drive him out. Where was he to go? Certainly not down his beloved Kö, where the greyhounds slavered for his blood and the world was ready to watch his death throes. And not home. His wife was waiting for him there. The world might see her as the compliant one, the silent seamstress ready to do anyone’s bidding. But Reiner knew this wraith had teeth. She had gnawed on him relentlessly since the news arrived. How he was brought low now, how he should never have mixed himself up with that singer. As he had fled their expensive riverside flat, the one they would now be forced to vacate since his sole source of income lay full of gaping wounds, his wife had shrilled that he had earned his place in the grave beside Erin Brandt.
Definitely he could not go home.
The wailing overhead gradually lessened. The Polish maid seemed content now to moan a single word. Over and over she repeated the baby’s name. Celeste. Celeste. Reiner folded his head into his hands, inwardly moaning along with Goscha.
Then he realized what he was saying.
He stood and walked to the window. Goscha’s moans were no longer a vexation. They pushed him forward. Of course. There was indeed a way out of this. A perfect way.
The phone rang just as he was reaching for it. Reiner stared in confusion. The ringing continued. Tentatively he picked up the receiver. He stared at it a moment longer before placing it to his ear. “Yes?”
“Tell me you haven’t done anything yet.”
Reiner sighed. Of course this man would have anticipated everything. Of course. And in that moment, for the very first time, things began to grow clear. “No,” Reiner replied. “Not yet.”
“Good. Very good.” The voice held the quality of a dagger wrapped in a silk scarf. “Now I will tell you precisely what is going to happen. But first I need to know, does your wife speak English?”
“Yes.” For once, Reiner was able to anticipate the man’s thinking. At least partially. “But she won’t help us.”
“That,” the man replied, “is where you are most assuredly wrong.”