Sarah Pinborough - Into the Silence

'I'm sorry,' he muttered, feeling sorry for a lot of things, drinking coffee not amongst them.

Drew's hands gripped his comfortable hips and he shook his head. 'No wonder you're having problems getting a decent note out. Still, never mind. I'll have to work with what I've been given. Although what Ben would have made of it, I dread to think.' Hovering his finger over the play button on the portable stereo, Drew raised an eyebrow. 'Now, what do we have to remember?'

Ianto gritted his teeth against the patronising 'we' and took a deep breath. 'Not to breathe with my shoulders and to tuck my diaphragm in.'

'Bravissimo.'

As the first strains of music started, Ianto wondered whether his love for the duet from The Pearl Fishers was lost for ever. It was beginning to feel like it might be.

The approaching dusk crept slowly across Cardiff, evening greedily consuming any light in the damp cool air and replacing it with an infectious grey gloom.

The streets were hushed, and even the traffic was moving with more caution, as if fearful that the mysterious killer that plagued the streets would follow the thrum of the engines and claim their drivers' lives and insides when they reached their destinations. Pedestrians peered cautiously over their shoulders and shivered at the headlines written boldly on A-boards, all declaring No leads in hunt for Serial Slasher! City in terror! and found they huddled closer together as they scurried home.

Strange things often happened in Cardiff, and on a subconscious level its residents were toughened against them, but this was different. In the rain and the mist that poured in across the water, as if even the Bay itself could feel the anxiety that pulsed through the city's inhabitants, the fear that ate at the heart of the Welsh nation was like that which had haunted Whitechapel over a hundred years before. Ripper. Slasher . The words were too similar for most people's liking, and as more vivid details of the gruesome nature of the murders emerged, splattered across the pages of the papers, more residents hurried home to turn their lights on, lock the doors, and take comfort in each other's heat on their sofas.

In the pubs and bars, people watched each other carefully. Who could you trust? Really? Eyes were furtive, glancing up, down and around. Danger could lurk in any direction. There were whispers of heavy feet on roofs, strange figures seen loitering in dark places, there and then not there. Wild stories bred by feverish imaginations.

Cars headed out, away from the bright lights of the Bay, many visitors cutting short their trips, declaring to disappointed hoteliers and bed and breakfast owners that 'the weather was too unpleasant', but the delicate tremble in the hands that signed bills and receipts hinted at the truth. Until the police could catch this killer, then someone had to be next. And no one wanted it to be them. But they all waited in anticipation of the next set of grisly details. There was nothing like a murder to make you feel alive, after all.

Adrienne Scott chucked her robe and wig onto her desk next to all the case files that were screaming for her attention, and shut the door to her office in chambers behind her. Her head was thumping, and all she wanted to do was go and drink a large glass of white wine. It had been one of those days, and tomorrow she had to visit with Ryan before going straight into court so that one wasn't going to be any better. She avoided contemplating the tragedy that a bottle of wine seemed like the only occasional respite from her life.

Leaving her overcoat undone, she let the light drizzle land on her face and clothes. It was refreshing and let her brain breathe. It might even help shift this headache before painkillers were needed. She glanced at her watch. Quarter to five. It was almost a respectable time for the first drink of the evening, and she'd at least arranged to meet a friend so that she could kid herself the wine was part of a social occasion rather than the social occasion being there to support the wine.

Her heels tapped across the small square as she stretched out the no-nonsense stride that had, many times over, warned any potential suitors away before they'd even approached her to speak. I can cope, her walk said. I don't need you to complicate my life. It's complicated enough. Now sod off, before we start to like each other.

Over on a corner, a choir of eight or ten bedraggled men and women were singing into the night air. Don't let fear kill Cardiff's music! proclaimed the banner they were holding over their heads, but they didn't seem to be singing with too much enthusiasm, apart from one woman at the front who was belting it out, a beatific smile plastered across her wet face. Her sharp barrister's eyes giving the singers a quick onceover, Adrienne decided it was probably this woman who was responsible for dragging the rest of them out into the cold streets. She had the look of a bossy cow.

There was no collection box at their feet, and Adrienne didn't smile as she passed. Music was one thing she could do without. Ryan had destroyed any enjoyment she'd ever got from singing. Glaring at the billboard posters still carrying the smiling face of the murdered opera singer, Adrienne thought she couldn't wait for the bloody competition to be over.

But, before that, she couldn't wait for that first glass of deliciously numbing Chardonnay.

Ianto's face was flushed as they reached the end of the piece. As much as he hated admitting it, Drew's advice was improving his voice. He was sounding almost half-decent now.

Drew clapped his hands together. 'Much better! Much better!' He paused. 'I mean you still occasionally have the tonal quality of a complete amateur, but on the whole your breathing is almost there.' He paced a little, shaking his shoulders out. 'The middle section is your weak point. You need to be mezzo cantabile and mezzo diminuendo in order for your crescendo to be more powerful.'

More slowly and more gently . Ianto seemed to be learning as much about Italian from Drew as he was about singing. That morning he'd suggested that it might be easier if Drew would just tell him what he meant in English. Drew hadn't even commented but said all he needed to about that with a disgusted glare.

The chubby man looked at him, his eyes narrowing. 'Yes, the breathing's there, and you're hitting most of the notes OK, but you're lacking feeling and without that the music's nothing.'

'What?' So much for feeling better about himself.

'Emotion!' Drew flung his arms above his head in a typically overdramatic gesture. 'This song is all about love and passion! Two men realising they've both fallen in love with the same illusion of a fantasy woman, and then swearing their undying friendship despite this overwhelming passion they both feel.'

'I know what the bloody song's about,' Ianto sighed. 'That's my best. I can't do better.'

Drew shook his head. 'Yes, you can. I'm not talking about the notes, I'm talking about your expression.'

'I don't do expression. I keep my feelings to myself.'

'Doesn't take a genius to figure that out, darling.' Pressing the button to take the track back to the beginning, Drew shooed him backward. 'Just listen to me. I'll sing my part all the way through. Stand back and listen. You'll see what I mean.'

Ianto took a couple of steps backwards into the aisle. Folding his arms, he waited for the intro to finish and Drew to start. Watching the little man in front of him, he almost felt the change, as if the air trembled when he began to sing. Drew was no more than a few bars in when the hairs on the backs of Ianto's arms began to stand on end. His mouth dried as he let the music run through him, all the power of the melody and lyrics streaming out from Drew.