Troy slyly declined Rod’s invitation to get drunk. Rod unearthed a bottle so old the label had perished. Only the date remained: 1926. Troy occasionally sipped half an inch off the top of the glass and obediently stretched out his arm for a top up when Rod flourished the bottle, and then the second bottle. Between the two, Rod had reminisced without interruption.
“He was . . . a difficult man. Such a touchy bugger. Took a long time to get to know him.”
Troy wasn’t at all sure he had got to know Viktor Rosen. They had stuck to the issue—music. And while music was what Viktor Rosen was “about,” it had taught Troy more about Troy than it had about Rosen.
“He had . . . nothing . . . and he had everything.”
Rod was pretty pissed by now, shoes off, tie at half-mast, hunched on the edge of the armchair, all odd socks and socialist-red braces, cradling his glass as though he could read the future in the crystal.
“I don’t quite catch your drift,” Troy said as Rod’s silence simply added to the enigmatic nature of the remark.
“He was one of the most successful performers of the century. Top of the . . . wotsit. And he was canny. Got all his stuff out of Germany when he saw Hitler coming. Made the mistake of staying too long himself and got nabbed . . . but he got out of Germany and he got out of Austria . . . and when he got here his money and his piano were waiting for him. As soon as we let him out of chokey . . . the Americans wanted him. He made a packet in the States just before the end of the war. And when it was all over, we gave him citizenship and the king offered him a knighthood . . . and we all smoothed things over when Viktor said no . . . didn’t go with the job of playing the piano he said. As if it could be just a job. And . . . you saw his place on the river, the Bechstein . . . a Van Gogh on one wall . . . Chagall on the other . . .”
“I didn’t see a Chagall?”
“Used to be next to the fireplace. Must have moved it. Anyway, where was I? Yes. He had . . . everything and . . .”
The sentence trailed off, Rod rocked gently on his buttocks. Troy was not at all certain that he wasn’t about to topple backwards into oblivion.
“. . . And he had . . . nothing.”
“What nothing?”
Rod had to think about this. For a few moments the glassy eyes tried to lock onto his, but the booze won and he stared into his glass once more.
“No nothing. That’s about as much nothing as you can have. None. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Fuck all. Fuck nothing . . . heh . . . heh . . . Billy taught him that . . . ‘Fuck nothing’ along with ‘tickle the ivories,’ ‘the joanna’ . . . Viktor loved slang . . . he loved shocking people with it.”
Troy remembered the “stick with me kid” that had so amused the audience at the Wigmore but he was none the wiser. He tried a different tack.
“Did Viktor ever say there was anything . . . missing?”
“Nope . . . not in his nature . . . that would be too . . . sentimental . . . not an overtly sentimental man . . . but it was obvious. Parents long dead. Brother killed in the First War. Sister . . . sister . . . well, he looked into that afterwards . . . I helped him . . . as far as we could ever tell . . . looks as though she died in Treblinka . . . he could never persuade her to leave Berlin. No, the nothing of which Viktor had plenty was . . . family.”
Another long, wobbling pause, Rod teetering on edge of seat and sentence.
“Of course. We were his family. Us ‘Stinking Jews’ . . . he was very fond of Joe Hummel and Arthur Kornfeld . . . and I think Billy and Oskar infuriated and amused him by turns . . . but the real family were his pupils . . . all those kids he got together . . . and he was fond of you, y’know . . . said you’d go far if you’d just concentrate on the piano and forget playing coppers . . . fond of all his pupils . . . they were his kids . . . they were his kids . . . do you know . . . do you know . . . ?”
This surely was it? He’d never get to the end of this sentence.
“Do you know, that young girl who plays the cello . . . Voytek . . . the Austrian girl . . . Viktor gave her the cello she plays . . . just . . . gave it to her . . . y’know what it is . . . ?”
Troy had paid no mind to the cello at the Wigmore, he’d drunk in the music and he’d drunk in some of the player, but he’d scarcely noticed the instrument.
“It’s not a Stradi . . . Stradivarius. But it’s some bloke like him . . . made in seventeen something or other. Now . . . whadya think that’s worth? Gotta be worth a packet hasn’t it . . . I mean . . . a Straddithingy . . . just gave it to her . . . children. Kids. His kids. They were his . . . his . . .”
It was a minute or more before Troy realized that Rod was no longer seeking wisdom in the bottom of his glass of claret and had fallen asleep. He gently prised the glass from his fingers and went in search of Cid.
They tumbled him into the marital bed.
Troy tugged at one trouser leg, Cid at the other.
“How long have I known you, Inspector Troy?”
“Since you became engaged to Rod, Lady Troy. The summer of 1932.”
“And how old were you, Inspector?”
“I was sixteen, ma’am. A tad shy of my seventeeth.”
“And how many times have us five-foot midgets tipped this six-foot drunk into bed, whipped off his socks and his trousers, and tucked him up for the night?”
“I’ve lost track. But this isn’t like any other night. He lost friends in combat. To be expected in war, and Rod was at the sharp end. He lost our father, who took long enough in dying to bid the fondest farewell to us all. Viktor is different. Viktor’s death is different.”
“No anticipation, no farewells.”
“Quite,” said Troy.
Cid said, “I’ve made up the bed in your old room. Stay for breakfast. I’m sure he’ll want to see you at breakfast.”