Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“My friends,” he said in that light and delicate voice, letting his eyes travel over the rows and boxes so it seemed to each person present he had called them by name, “for whoever shares this night with me, is my friend.” He placed his hand over his breast, and the auditorium was filled with the breeze of a hundred feminine sighs. “We are brought here together by tragedy and love. This concert tonight is for the memory of my beautiful colleague, the singer who has thrilled kings, courts and emperors with her voice, her talent, her artistry. Miss Isabella Marin.”

The theater flooded with cheers. “Bravo, Marin! Brava, Isabella!” At the back of the gallery a little woman in black felt the noise break over her. It seemed she could gather it all in her aching heart like a cup, and it being filled, offer it up to Isabella.

Manzerotti waited, head bowed, till the waves of sound had ebbed a little way, then nodded to the florid-looking leader of the orchestra who began to play, and into the honey-colored air, he unleashed his voice and let it lift.

Outside the chophouse three men embraced and hit each other across their backs, drawing a belch from the fish-faced man and laughter from all. They turned to go their separate ways, but before any of them had lost sight of the others, three King’s Messengers, their shapes hidden by long dark capes and tricorn hats worn low over their eyes, had stepped free of the shadows. Each man felt a firm hand on his elbow, a murmur in his ear, a pressure pushing him toward the three separate carriages that were even now drawing out of the darkened side street. Two men turned to water and went like lambs. The third, a handsome blond man, began to wriggle and cry, protesting he knew not what through snot and misery. The man at his arm did not even trouble to pause. His grip was secure.

Johannes began to sense there was something wrong in the air as he hugged the shadows in Red Lyon Street. He stopped and lifted his chin. There was a sudden movement in the darkness behind him and a whistle. He heard it to his right, then its echo down the street in front of him. He stood still a moment and swung his gaze like a lighthouse beam around him. Nothing but dark windows. The streets were oddly quiet. A slight frown passed over his brow like the water stirred in a millpond. He hobbled forward, his leg pulsing and aching.

Johannes was sure the wound was beginning to open again. Something curled and uncurled below his ribs. Again that whistle. It seemed to haunt him, guide him-but no one approached. He sensed eyes in the darkness. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and stung, and he realized with a detached surprise that he was afraid. He had seen fear on the faces of others, but had had no experience of it himself till now. He remembered seeing fear on Manzerotti’s face-but only once, when they were children and one of the young students in the musical academy who had not had the operation had struck Manzerotti down and called him a freak, an affront to God. Johannes had knocked the offender on his back and offered the little boy in front of him his hand. At that time Johannes had been the jewel in the school’s crown; his voice was of a clarity declared miraculous, his artistry exceptional. Since coming from Germany he had been treated like a little God. Now a boy brushed past him in the dark street, a fleeing shadow. He put his hand to his pocket and cursed. His money taken. He hissed into the thick gloom where the boy had disappeared. There was a laugh. A soft female voice called from some dark corner: “All fleeced, uncle?” He took a couple of painful steps toward it, but heard the light step of feet running from him. The laugh again. More distant. The whistle, closer and from the other side of the road.

Johannes had begged for the operation; gone down on his knees to his father, a wood turner in Leipzig, with the priest standing behind him. The priest had told them he was a gift from God, that his voice could serve the Church in all its beauty forever. The boy had begged to give himself to his Savior’s glory. Reluctantly his father had agreed, and Johannes had thanked the Lord, though through his ecstasy he could still hear the softened clink of money being placed in his father’s hand. He had left his home that day; traveled with the priest to the local court where a doctor from Italy happened to be staying and seeing to several boys. He heard the soft exchange of currency again and traveled to Bologna at the doctor’s side, overjoyed that God was bringing him to His bosom. Manzerotti, by contrast, had not wished it. Had tried to run. Had failed. Had arrived at the school for a life of daily vocal and musical practice as a possible, a potential-his voice still all thin and empty. Then Johannes had helped him to his feet and looked into those black eyes for the first time.

“You speak strangely,” Manzerotti had said as he stood upright again.

“I was born in Germany,” Johannes replied in his clear bell-like voice. “I have studied here two years. Every language I speak now, I speak with a foreigner’s tongue.”

Molloy twisted the top of the table and moved away. The King’s Messenger with him stepped forward and pulled out a neat roll of papers.

“There we have it then,” he said. Molloy nodded and began to feel about in the hidden drawers a little more, but the messenger put a hand to his sleeve. “Why don’t we have the witch woman with us, or that boy?”

Molloy pulled his hat down over his ears and wrapped his cloak around him.

“Mrs. Bligh has other business.” He found and picked up the brooch of flowers. The messenger watched him with narrowed eyes, but Molloy put the brooch in his pocket anyhow. The man would make nothing of it, and he had been asked to fetch it. He heard a whistle on the street outside and was satisfied.

Johannes thought of the river. If he could get to the far shore, then to the anonymity of Southwark, he could send to Manzerotti for help from there. He limped toward the crowd of men at the Black Lyon Stairs. The whistle came from behind him. The watermen turned and looked at him a moment, then without speech to him or to one another, each retired to his boat and cast off. Johannes lifted his pocket watch so it caught the light of the oil lamp guttering greasily by the steps to show he had money, but the skiffs and wherries drew away. Johannes swallowed and put the watch back in his pocket. Fear flowered into a sweat on his brow. He turned up the hill again, making for the rookeries of Chandos Street, where he had tracked one of the witch’s spies. There a man could hide. The significance of the watermen pulling away from him so silent and of one mind, he would not think of.

Mr. Palmer stood in the center of Carmichael’s study, a still moment in the activity of the room, and looked through the papers that had been found behind the Latin texts and in the false front of the fireplace. There was a considerable amount of money in banknotes and gold, and a letter in French confirming “the recommendation of the man that carries it, who can be recognized in the usual way.” Fitzraven, Palmer supposed. There were four charts showing details of Portsmouth and Spithead and the arrangement of vessels within them, and a model of a gun he had himself given into the hands of his secretary to be placed in one of the vaults. There was also a dense page of notes full of fresh gossip from the Admiralty and the competing political factions within it. He paused in his reading to push the little model to and fro across Lord Carmichael’s desk.

“Field?” he said.

One of the men shaking out the neat volumes in the rear bookcase paused in his work and turned around.

“Yes, sir?”

“Go and tell Lord Sandwich we are ready for him.”

Johannes did not know at what moment he realized his voice was leaving him. During a practice, a strange hum had begun at the back of his throat. When he spoke, the edges of his words started sounding a little shrill. He thought he was merely tired, as he had sung for the school several times in the evenings, and still had to be awake at dawn for the morning service. It was about a week after he had helped Manzerotti to his feet. He saved the little Italian boy and suddenly the boy’s voice was beginning to flower and grow. A few days later, Johannes had opened his lips to sail across the surface of Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater like a swan on water, and as the first phrase lifted into the second, the ice of his voice had cracked and a strange yelping croak leaped from his mouth like a toad. He had stopped. Horrified. The boys next to him began to look afraid. He gazed across to the singers on the opposite side of the choir, terrified, and had met Manzerotti’s black eyes. They were calm, loving; he gave Johannes the faintest ghost of a smile, then turned his attention back toward the priest.