Scott Mariani: The Mozart Conspiracy

Not after what he’d done to her fifteen years ago.

Ballykelly, Northern Ireland

Fifteen years earlier

On a washed-out Tuesday night, Lance-Corporal Benedict Hope turned in off the street and walked down the puddled alley past the bins and the fresh graffiti that said FUCK THEPOPE. The sign for the little wine bar creaked in the wind.

He went in through the stone entrance and shook the rain from his clothes, glad to be out of uniform. A rusty iron stairway led up to the double doors of the bar. As he got nearer he could hear the sound of the piano drifting down. He pushed through the doors and walked across the peeling linoleum floor. The place was almost empty.

Ben pulled up a stool at the bar. The barman was polishing a pint glass with a cloth.

‘How’re you doing, Joe?’

Joe smiled through his heavy beard. ‘Doin’ rightly, thanks. Same as usual?’

‘Why not?’ Ben said.

Joe grabbed a spirit glass and filled it from the bottle of Black Bush that hung behind the bar.‘You’ll be through that one soon,’ he said, gazing at the level in the bottle.

The pianist started up again. The battered old upright was missing most of its finish and badly in need of a tuning, but it sounded good under his fingers. He was doing a pretty good rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis boogie-woogie, keeping up a thumping stride rhythm with his left hand as his right churned out lightning blues scales.

‘Not bad, is he?’ said Joe. ‘One of your lot, from the look of him.’

Ben turned round on the bar stool. ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact he is.’

‘Pity. I was thinking of hiring him. Might bring in a bit o’ trade.’

Ben knew his name, too. Private Oliver Llewellyn. He was tall and slender, and his black hair was cropped short in a severe buzz-cut. He was too busy at the keyboard to notice Ben sitting watching him.

A pretty young blonde of about twenty was leaning against the side of the piano, gazing admiringly as Oliver’s fingers shot up and down the keys. He suddenly played a fast downward run that terminated in a series of shimmering jazzy chords as Jerry Lee Lewis gave way to Oscar Peterson.

‘You’re fantastic, so you are,’ the girl breathed. ‘You’re not really a soldier, are you?’

‘Sure I am.’ Oliver smiled up at her, still playing. ‘SAS.’

‘You’re kidding,’ she said.

‘Nope,’ he replied. ‘I never kid. SAS. Sexy-Attractive-Sophisticated. That’s me.’

She giggled and thumped him playfully on the shoulder, and he kept playing with his right hand while he slipped his left arm around her waist and tugged her towards him. ‘There’s plenty of room on this piano stool for two of us,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll teach you a duet.’

She sat up close next to him, her thigh pressing against his. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Bernie.’

Ben grinned and turned back to his drink, exchanging a knowing look with Joe. Private Llewellyn didn’t waste time.

The doors swung open and four guys walked in and took a table in the middle of the room. They were in their mid-twenties, surly, overconfident. One of them went to the bar for pints of lager, ignoring Ben’s friendly nod. One of his friends, the big overweight one with the pasty face, twisted heavily in his seat and called over to the girl as Oliver was showing her a simple duet. ‘Bernie! Get over here!’ His narrowed eyes shot a long glance at Oliver’s back.

Bernie broke away from the piano and got nervously to her feet. ‘Got to go,’ she whispered to Oliver. Oliver shrugged sadly and launched into a Chopin Nocturne.

Bernie sat down with the four lads. ‘Fuck were you doing with him ?’ the fat one demanded, staring at her hard. ‘Can’t you see what he is?’

‘Just having a giggle,’ she said quietly. ‘Leave him alone, Gary.’

Oliver stopped playing. He grabbed the half-finished pint from the top of the piano and drained it, glanced at his watch and walked out of the bar. Bernie craned her head and gave him a wistful smile as he went by.

The four guys exchanged looks. Gary raised his eyebrows and jerked his chin at the door. ‘You wait here,’ he growled at Bernie. He pushed his chair back from the table. The four of them slurped down the last of their beer and stood up. They headed for the door. Bernie looked worried. ‘Gary…’ she started.

‘You-shut-your-hole.’ Gary pointed a stubby warning finger in her face. ‘This is your fault, you slag. I told you not to hang around with them fuckin’ soldiers.’

The four of them filed out purposefully.

Ben had been watching. He sighed. He set his glass on the bar and slid down from his stool.

Outside in the alleyway, the four guys had already caught up with Oliver. They had him shoved up against the wall. Two of them had lock-knives. Gary aimed a punch at Oliver’s stomach that doubled him up. Oliver straightened suddenly and head-butted him between the eyes. The fat guy let out a scream and reeled backwards, blood pouring from a broken nose. The other three started on Oliver, two holding him with knives to his throat as the third kicked him in the belly. They had his wallet, ripping notes out of it.

Ben had come up silently behind them. Gary was too busy with his broken nose, so he focused on the others. A fistful of hair and a sharp kick to the back of the knee, and one of the knifemen was writhing on his back. Ben could easily have killed him then. Instead he stamped hard on his genitals. The guy let out an animal scream. The other two let go of Oliver and ran.

Gary raised his fists. His face was slicked with blood. Ben knew exactly what to expect from him. He was the typical sloppy brawler, no brains and no discipline. Rage and strength and luck would be the only things going for him. He’d come roaring in like a big dumb bull. His punches would be slow and fly in a curved arc that a trained fighter could take his time blocking. Once you blocked it and got inside the arc you could hit him hard.

Gary came on just the way Ben had thought. The only problem was thinking of the best way to stop him without causing major injury. He caught the fist that swung at him, locked it and broke the wrist. He followed that up with a jab that pulverized Gary’s lips and sent him crashing headlong into a row of bins. Gary flopped down on the wet concrete and lay still next to his friend, who was still squirming on his back, screaming in agony and clutching his crushed balls.

Ben helped Oliver to his feet. He was fighting for air after the heavy kick in the stomach. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Ben said, supporting him. Something hard and brittle crunched underfoot. He looked down at the splintered pieces of Gary’s teeth on the ground.

‘Good thing you turned up when you did,’ Oliver wheezed. ‘I might have killed them.’ He frowned at Ben, recognition showing on his face. ‘Sir,’ he added.

‘Oh, I noticed that. SAS, huh?’ Oliver’s wallet was lying on the wet ground. Ben knelt down and picked up the papers that had fallen out of it. Driving licence, money, a photo. Ben folded it into the wallet and was about to hand it back to Oliver.

Then he stopped. He opened the wallet again. Took out the photo. Unfolded it and looked at it again. He took a good long look at it.

It was a shot of Oliver with a girl, taken at a party. He had his arm round her, fooling about, pulling a stupid face.

But Ben wasn’t looking at Oliver.

She was wearing a green evening dress that brought out the colour of her eyes, and her lustrous black hair cascaded over her bare shoulders.

For a moment he couldn’t take his eyes off the photo. It took an effort to tear his gaze away. He waved it at Oliver before he finally folded it up again and replaced it in the wallet. ‘If I had a girlfriend like that,’ he said sternly, ‘I wouldn’t be getting myself into trouble chasing after the likes of Bernie up there.’