Питер Ловси - The Tooth Tattoo

‘What do you expect — the Japanese National Anthem?’

Diamond raised his finger. ‘I do the jokes here.’

Back in the CID room, he told the team, ‘This is gainful employment, so we’re not knocking it. In fact, we’re going to make a big production of it. I want a display board with photos of the deceased and all the evidence, a map of the river and anything else you can think of. That’s your job, John.’

Leaman beamed. Incident rooms were his speciality.

‘Ingeborg, you get a front-line job, checking the two universities and all the private language colleges to see if any Japanese students have stopped attending in the past three months. Sometimes these things don’t get reported. And Paul...’

‘Yes, guv?’

‘You’re on hotels. Examine the registers for yourself. Don’t just ask the reception people. Japanese names are pretty easy to spot. Get the details of all of them who stayed here and when they checked out.’

‘Isn’t some of that confidential?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Data protection.’

‘Don’t talk to me about data protection. You’re in CID, doing a job, trying to trace a missing person.’

John Leaman said, ‘Strictly speaking, she isn’t missing. We know where she is.’

Diamond didn’t appreciate the logic. ‘She’s missing from somewhere, clever clogs, has to be. It’s our job to find out where, college, hotel, tour group. That’s how we’ll find her name.’

‘Precisely,’ Leaman said. ‘It’s the name that’s missing, not the person.’

‘Any more lip from you, John, and you’ll find yourself on knicker duty.’ He addressed the team in general. ‘Anyone here clued up on music?’

‘Depends what sort,’ Halliwell said.

‘We don’t know what sort. We have one musical note.’

‘Personally, I like the Big Band sound.’

‘Big Band. What’s that — Glenn Miller? Duke Ellington? You’re just the man to conduct this big band. I need an office manager. It’s backroom, I know, but how could we manage without you?’

Halliwell gave the grin of a man who’d spoken once too often.

‘Ingeborg?’ Diamond said.

‘You already gave me a job, guv.’

‘Yes, but what’s your taste in music?’

‘I’m into roots.’

‘What on earth...?’

‘Folk, Celtic, blues, country and western.’

Paul Gilbert added, ‘When it’s not rock, jazz or classical, it must be roots. Me, I go for modern rock.’

‘This isn’t getting us anywhere,’ Diamond said. ‘I had a weekend in Vienna and visited Beethoven’s house, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert.’

‘We have a wide spectrum, then,’ Leaman said. ‘I enjoy decent music of all kinds, but for preference I’m a Savoyard.’

‘I thought that was a variety of sausage.’

‘Gilbert and Sullivan,’ Leaman said, not appreciating the laughs.

‘The thing is, why did she choose to get a musical note glued to her tooth? Is she a performer? If so, we’d probably have heard. When a musician goes missing, people notice. It gets in the news.’

‘She doesn’t have to be a musician,’ Halliwell said. ‘She could be a music lover, just like any of us. I’m not sure if the tooth tattoo is going to help us much more now we know she’s almost certainly Japanese.’

Ingeborg had been doing some lateral thinking. ‘Guv, is it just a coincidence that you asked me some weeks back to get some background on that Japanese tourist who was found in the canal in Vienna?’

‘Must be,’ he said to cut her off, wanting to confine the discussion to what was happening in Bath. ‘Better get started on this, boys and girls. Until something bigger comes along, it’s the best way to defend our jobs. All the apparatus of an incident room. Computer back-up. Whiteboard. Photos. Action files. Big wheel — that’s me. Let’s get this show on the road.’

After that, no one had any other option than to look busy. Paul Gilbert remarked to Ingeborg as they headed for the door, ‘Looks like the boss is coming out of his Swedish detective phase.’

‘We can hope,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t put money on it yet.’

‘One more time. She won’t be back for ages.’ Tippi Carlyle, in her bed facing Mel, ruffled his hair and smoothed her hand across his cheek and jaw. ‘She’s at Weight Watchers until seven and she always goes for a McDonald’s after.’

‘It’s her house and you’re her daughter.’

‘The apple of her eye.’

‘Okay, which makes it worse if she comes home early and finds me in bed with the apple of her eye.’

She wriggled and her nipples skimmed his chest. ‘You can’t deny you’re up for it.’

‘I don’t want to upset her and nor do you.’

‘Come on, big boy. Have another bite of the apple.’

‘And get asked to leave? I like it here.’

She pressed closer. ‘This is what you like.’

‘I think we should each have a shower — separately — and be in our own rooms when she gets back.’

‘You’re scared of her.’

‘I respect her. She’s my landlady.’

‘Get real, Mel. She must have guessed about us in — how long? Six weeks? My Mum’s not daft. It’s not as if I’m under age.’

‘Agreed, but she hasn’t seen us at it. Let’s show respect and leave her guessing.’

‘You’re terrified she’ll kick you out. You prefer her cooked breakfasts to making love to me.’

‘Tippi, I want both to continue.’

‘Honest? Prove it, then.’

‘Not right now.’ He kissed her forehead, eased away, rolled over, emerged from under the quilt and started gathering his clothes.

Tippi watched him. ‘Tosser.’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘You must be joking.’

He padded back to his room, closed the door and took that shower. It doesn’t get better than this, he thought. A regular income, nice lodgings, a friendly landlady with a dreamboat daughter who can’t get enough, and any amount of music. I’ve hit the jackpot here in Bath.

Two months into the residency, the quartet remained an eccentric bunch, but by mutual consent they stayed apart from each other except when rehearsing and performing. The accommodations office at the university had first offered them a large Victorian house on Lansdown Road to share, and Ivan had behaved as if he was being sent to Siberia. ‘That’s out of the question, wholly unsuitable,’ he’d said. ‘Can’t you give us separate lodgings?’ The others had felt the same way — nothing is more calculated to disturb than overhearing a fellow artist at practice — and said so in unison. Four addresses spread across the city were found. The quartet would need to meet only when music-making. And Douglas, having set up the residency, scarpered back to London.

Part of Mel’s contract was giving solo classes for third-year BA music students and postgraduates. The standard was high, the teaching a joy. Little different in method, though, from the lessons he had given at Fingis Road. He had five talented violists not far short of professional standard. In addition, three mornings each week the quartet drove out to the Newton Park campus and attended the Michael Tippett Centre, the university’s pride and joy, one of the best locations in the country for ensemble playing. Rehearsals were private at this stage. Later they would allow some undergraduates in.

The first of the “soirées” Doug had negotiated as part of the deal had been held in a beautifully panelled room at Dyrham House, high in the Cotswolds north of the city. In consideration for Mel the ensemble played the Beethoven Quartet in C sharp minor he’d learned for his audition and they delivered its subtle mood changes and breathtaking extravagance with finesse. The audience of thirty or so, including a number of final-year students, received it with shouts of appreciation out of keeping with the surroundings. They seemed to feel mere clapping was not enough.