The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge Read online

  ‘May we speak in English? My French is not particularly sophisticated. I understand from my secretary that you wish to record this interview and I trust that you will send her a copy of the transcription. As you know I am very busy with the Festival here in Lübeck. I can offer you an hour, perhaps an hour and a half of my time, but no more. Now, what did you wish to ask me?’

  The house smelt of fresh coffee and cinnamon, but the Composer was clearly not intending to offer them anything to drink. The table was swept clear apart from one large candle in a blue dish at the centre beneath the lowered white dome of the lamp. The Judge relaxed and allowed the utter silence to grow around her. I have not travelled nearly two thousand kilometres to be intimidated by a probable madman who may, or may not, be a murderer. Gaëlle’s insolent fearlessness also proved useful. She slapped her pad down upon the polished table with a resounding smack, produced her pen with the death’s head spiked on the tip, and began to tap two fingers gently on the empty paper. The sound boomed like a drum.

  Dominique Carpentier manoeuvred her chair gently on the flagstones so that she was facing the Composer and arranged her ring-binder file with all her notes upon her lap so that her attitude was more informal, and she could look at him directly. For a long moment they stared at one another, and she watched the curiosity mounting in his eyes. For the first time she acknowledged not only his power, but also his beauty. Behind the rimless glasses his eyes were a terrible cold blue. The eyebrows still shone golden, a pale reddish brown, and the white hair, thick and rummaged, fell across them. His lined strong face gathered itself up into a grimace of concentration. He is recording me, weighing me up, in the same way that I am assessing him. The Judge instantly sensed an equality of strength in her antagonist and coiled every muscle, ready to spring.

  ‘Well?’ prompted the Composer. And so the Judge began.

  ‘We know that you are an intimate friend of the Laval family. Both Anton and Marie-Cécile Laval. Were you aware of their involvement with the Faith?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I am godfather to Marie-Cécile’s two children. Ever since their father’s death I have been a father – or perhaps a grandfather – to them. Marie-Cécile always had a religious bent. She was very ‘‘catholique pratiquante’’ as she used to say, when she was a girl. I think Anton must have first introduced her to his beliefs. She remained true to her church. But she loved her brother. She studied his faith. She wanted to understand him.’

  ‘Did they ever talk to you about the Faith and try to involve you?’

  ‘There is something you must understand, Madame Carpentier, the Faith is not a proselytising religion. It is not some sect invented for financial gain, like the charlatans you spend your time investigating. It is not a religion at all in the ordinary sense. It is a chemin, a pathway towards knowledge. You cannot discover the Faith on every street corner. You must be selected, initiated, chosen.’

  ‘Many sects present themselves in that way,’ said the Judge slowly, considering her words with great care. ‘It’s an effective selling point.’

  ‘Comme vous dites,’ said the Composer, refusing to rise to her jibe.

  ‘So the Lavals never tried to involve you in the Faith in any way?’

  ‘We spoke about it. It wasn’t a secret. I knew how they felt, and I respected their views. But, Madame Carpentier, if you are as thorough as your reputation suggests that you are, you probably know as much about the Faith as any ordinary person who is not an initiate. Members of the Faith do not, as a rule, ever discuss the details of their beliefs with outsiders.’

  He’s not answering my questions, thought the Judge. Change tack.

  ‘Where were you on the night of New Year’s Eve, 2000?’

  ‘I’ve already told your brutal Commissaire all this. I was in Berlin, preparing a New Year’s Day concert to celebrate the millennium.’

  ‘Did you make any attempt to contact Marie-Cécile Laval or her children on New Year’s night?’

  ‘Yes. I rang to wish her une bonne année.’

  ‘And did you speak to her?’

  Here came the first hesitation. The Judge looked down at the times and texts of the messages on her lap and counted the five missed calls: two before midnight, two well afterwards and one at four in the morning. He must have suspected something. Or known for sure.

  ‘No. The lines were all occupied. I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘Did you try more than once?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t remember how many times.’

  ‘Did you have any reason to believe that she would commit suicide that night?’

  Was it suicide? Does he think it was suicide? Has he any idea what happened that night in the snow? Does he know she was shot? Does he know about the gun?

  ‘None whatever.’

  The Judge listened to his cool, measured replies and conjured the anxious urgency on the tape. Cécile. Ring me today. I beg you. Ring me as soon as you can. The apprehension in that voice confessed a thousand things, but one fear above all else. Don’t go. Be there. Stay with me. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone. Don’t go.

  ‘What are your views on suicide, Monsieur Grosz?’

  ‘My views? In what way is that relevant?’

  ‘I merely ask. Were you angry that your friends – your closest friends by your account – were so ready to kill themselves and to leave this world behind?’

  ‘Angry? Why should I be angry? I miss them. I was – I am deeply grieved at their departure.’

  He paused and the Judge registered his use of the word ‘departure’ rather than ‘death’. She suspected that only members of the Faith would describe their collective massacre as a departure. Yet even this slip sounded inconclusive. If she pounced on that one word he could simply claim to respect their religious convictions and demonstrate his affection by using their terminology. The Composer looked up; he fixed her with his blue glare and she heard the truth in his voice.

  ‘Sometimes I can accept their decision. Sometimes I cannot. I take my responsibilities towards Cécile’s children very seriously. I am their legal guardian now.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ The Judge appeared to remember. A copy of Marie-Cécile Laval’s last will and testament rested in the briefcase beside her. ‘Paul and Marie-Thérèse. But surely they are adults?’

  ‘Were you capable of taking adult decisions at the age of seventeen, Madame Carpentier? Of managing a vineyard with dozens of employees? Or running a complex business?’

  The Judge nodded.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with these children.’

  ‘I will take care of them, educate them and provide for their well-being. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘And you are fond of them?’

  ‘Of course. They have grown up before my eyes.’

  ‘I believe, sir, that you have no children of your own.’

  The Composer stiffened slightly. The Judge, however, was not entirely sure what point of weakness she had touched. So she persisted.

  ‘Can you comprehend, Monsieur, how a mother and father could murder their own unknowing, unconscious children for the sake of a belief that cannot, in the normal course of things, ever be verified?’

  The strange, beautiful face before her darkened and closed.

  ‘Murder, you say. I do not judge.’

  ‘Yes, I do say murder. Tiny children cannot and do not commit suicide, which is an act that requires an adult awareness of what is at stake. The adult members of the Faith who took their own lives in the early hours of New Year’s Day murdered their children first.’

  The Composer glittered, roused.

  ‘And do you have any children, Madame Carpentier? Children of your own? You do not, or you would answer me at once. I have told you that I respect my friends and their strange faith. I tell you that I do not judge them, and I do not because I understand what it means to dedicate my life to a vocation, a calling – as they have done.’

  His voice rose.

&nb
sp; ‘I did not choose to live alone, like a hermit, cut off from all the social ties, which other men value. I did not choose to circle the earth like the Wandering Jew, without love or comfort, to live on in uncertainty and unknowing. I am a man who creates beautiful things. I too am chosen. I hear a language more beautiful than anything in the world and it is my task, the task for which I was born, to transcribe that language and to donate this music, along with my life of service, to the kingdom of this world. That is my sacrifice, Madame, and I make it willingly, gladly. It is my offering of joy. I am a Composer who honours his calling and accepts his burden, just as Christ once willingly lifted up the Cross.

  ‘No one else can create my life’s work. I have accepted a sacred trust and I will obey its laws. Yes, there are laws other than the ones you serve, Madame. I acknowledge my allotted task and I will carry this cross to my life’s end.’

  The Judge’s face sharpened during this extraordinary speech and Gaëlle’s fingers whirled silent across her pad. Get it down, Gaëlle, get it down, but don’t call attention to yourself. Don’t look up. The Composer took a deep breath.

  ‘And now, Madame, if you have no further questions I wish to be left in peace.’ He stood up.

  ‘I have one more question,’ said the Judge quietly, ‘and something to show you.’

  She reached into her briefcase and drew forth the Book. The cool authentic leather binding and strange folding clasp were placed in the man’s hands before he had a chance to recoil, and his fingers settled carefully on the inlaid golden rim.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ The Judge watched his every gesture. She remained seated, unmoved, intensely aware of Gaëlle’s death’s head pen frozen in mid-air. This moment, planned, anticipated, calculated and yet fraught with risk, had been forced upon her sooner than anticipated.

  His eyes darkened, the black core swallowing the blue, and a faint red stain blossomed on his chin and neck beside the collarbone.

  ‘This book belongs to Marie-Cécile Laval,’ he said softly. The pressure in the room changed, as if they were descending rapidly inside a diving bell.

  I have you, thought the Judge, I have you now. His hands closed around the book. A long stillness surrounded them all, and faintly, as if from another country, they could hear the birds calling to each other in the gardens and the distant tussle of horns and bells warning each passage of the boats through the locks on the river.

  ‘You gave that book to Madame Laval.’ The Judge risked this statement, but lowered her voice, making each deadly word distinct. ‘I believe that you can also read the coded language written in that book.’

  Two white lines appeared down either side of his face, which was now wrenched, cadaverous, into a terrible mask of pain. The Judge froze. She had expected bluster, denials, recriminations, rage – not the agony of a man crucified. She sat very still and cold, and waited for developments.

  ‘I must now ask you to leave my house.’ His violent grasp upon the book tightened and clenched. He rose up over them like a ghoul, his great shoulders and white hair shaking. ‘Please leave.’

  The Judge never flinched.

  ‘Monsieur Grosz, that book is now a piece of evidence in an ongoing investigation conducted by officers of the French Republic. And I am afraid that I must ask for it back.’

  ‘Get out of my house!’ He towered above her, as dangerous as the hideous phantasm created by Frankenstein. The Judge stood up carefully and held out her hand.

  ‘Give back the book and we will leave your house.’

  Gaëlle, who was struggling into her coat, turned instantly to stone and attempted to vanish. The Judge barely reached the middle of his chest. One blow from his hand would have crumpled her into the flagstones. The Judge took one step closer, so that she was almost touching him, and looked up. This was the moment when the confrontation tipped in her favour. She stood too close to him. You cannot strike someone who is standing in your arms. She had stepped inside his defences, her nose and the dark frames of her glasses pressed fast against the window of his anger, and this uncanny lack of distance gave her the upper hand. She ushered the violence out of his countenance with her defiant, unwavering glare and reached for the book. He let her take it, like a man stunned.

  ‘Gaëlle?’ The tiny engine of her discipline growled back into action. She collected her briefcase and tucked the book under her arm. ‘I believe that we have outstayed our welcome. Thank you for your time, sir.’

  And with that she swept out of the house, Gaëlle scuttling behind her. As the door thudded shut the city erupted into a great peal of bells; the seven towers pounded out a crescendo of triumph and celebration. This was the first thing they heard as they returned to the world. It was midday.

  5

  THE PRINTER OF LÜBECK

  ‘Well? Is that it? Can we go home now? I don’t ever want to see him again. Schweigen was right. He’s a monster.’

  They kicked off their shoes and lounged on the Judge’s bed, flattening the sculptured duvets, which had all been restored into spiked points, like bishops’ mitres.

  ‘Our plane’s not till midday tomorrow, ma petite chérie. And we have work to do. You’re going to do a tour of the antiquarian booksellers with two photocopied pages, one all in code and one with code and German. And take this photograph, don’t crease it, or bend the plastic. I had it laminated. I think you can see the book’s binding quite clearly. Ask them if they have ever seen this book, have any copies ever been offered for sale and do they recognise the code.’

  ‘I thought you had dozens of experts cracking the bloody code?’

  ‘Well, two of them. They’ve already told me what it’s not, which is helpful, I suppose. I thought that it might be unaccented Hebrew, without the vowels, like holy scrolls of the Torah. But it isn’t.’

  ‘And what are you going to do?’

  The Judge fluttered through gewusstwo, the local register of businesses and service providers for Hansestadt Lübeck.

  ‘Lübeck is famous for its printing industry. There are some very old publishers here. The binding on this book is at least fifty years old, if not older. One of our experts thought that the pages were taken from an older document because the paper is handmade but not watermarked, and the whole thing has been rebound. It’s been typeset, even the title page, the ink actually hit the paper. We now know that Friedrich Grosz is F.G. – unless he has a double – and that the book once belonged to him. I’m certain that, in some irrevocable way, he is bound to the Faith. Lübeck is his home town. He was born here. If he had anything to do with the making of this book then I’m prepared to bet that it was restored, if not printed, here. I’m going to traipse round the printers.’

  Gaëlle stretched out, groaning.

  ‘I’m a recorder and an office clerk, not a policewoman. Isn’t this Schweigen’s work?’

  ‘Yes, it is. But he’s not here and we are.’

  ‘Did he leave a message for us last night? I forgot to ask.’

  ‘Several. I’ve asked Reception to intercept all his calls. And I’ve switched off the mobile.’

  ‘You didn’t! What if he has important information?’

  The Judge peered at Gaëlle over the top of her glasses. She spread the map of Lübeck across her knees and began matching printers’ addresses to the geography of the town.

  ‘Don’t worry about Schweigen, Gaëlle. At the moment we know more than he does. And that’s driving him mad.’

  * * *

  The morning betrayed them; it was raining in the streets. The sky sank, torpid and veiled in milky cloud, but the wind’s breath stole down the river in warmer currents. The earth opened its pores, unclenched against the vanishing cold and basked in fine, fresh spring rain. The Judge slithered across the slick cobbles, treasuring the book, swathed in plastic sheets, stowed inside her black rucksack. She balanced her umbrella at a lower angle, against the advancing crowds. Everyone else appeared to be several sizes larger than she was. The scale of the Altstadt var
ied from street to street. Sometimes grand baroque buildings with grey window frames and white cladding reared up beside her, ending in dramatic stone statues, a naked Mercury and Pomona, one breast exposed, clutching her basket of white marble apples, ready to dart between the stately, garlanded urns. Sometimes the red-brick Gothic gables, neatly repointed and reinforced, pushed their steepled façades upwards like stage sets, the last gable standing proud of the red-tiled roofs with their long sharp slopes and high chimneys. The gables were often supported by metal rods as the buildings settled, over centuries, into the damp earth of the medieval island city. The town, beautiful, comfortable, at ease with itself in the spring rain, embodied its official policy, proclaimed upon the Holstentor, CONCORDIA DOMI, FORIS PAX, Unity within the walls, peace before the gates. Pausing before the frilly windows of a patisserie, the Judge confronted an identical scaled model of the Holstentor, decorated in marzipan, bearing the same pompous declaration.