‘He’s no good at zapping mergers. Can’t you wait till after the Appleton?’

‘Flora’s my noomber one priority, now,’ said George firmly. ‘I’m not going to let that slip through my fingers. Work ruined my last marriage. It’s only for three months.’

Abby felt the peacekeeping forces had left the orchestra. Even worse with Flora gone, she and Marcus were thrown into each other’s company. Abby felt increasingly bad about betraying him with Viking. How long would it be before one of those rogues in the orchestra tipped him off — probably in the middle of the Appleton.

When she finally got home, having made a detour via Lucerne for Rodney’s funeral, she couldn’t meet Marcus’s eyes and became even more aggressive through guilt.

‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling for days. Oh, there you are, baby,’ as a mewing Scriabin came running down the stairs, ‘I was so worried about you.’

‘Mrs Diggory’s been looking after them,’ stammered Marcus, ‘and George came and collected Trevor. Isn’t it amazing about him and Flora?’

‘Don’t change the subject. How could you push off and leave them?’ Abby looked lovingly down at Scriabin, who was now purring in her arms, sucking at her jersey like a baby.

‘My asthma got so bad,’ mumbled Marcus, ‘and the cats missed you and kept coming into the studio and Howie isn’t getting me any work so I flew over to Prague and tried to set up a cheap record deal.’

He didn’t add that Boris’s and Abby’s promises back in March of conducting and bankrolling him had never materialized.

‘Any luck?’ asked Abby.

‘I’m waiting to hear.’

Even Abby in her state of preoccupation noticed he looked awful, dreadfully thin and pale but with an unnatural hectic flush on his cheeks, and the rash of too many steroids speckling his mouth. By the time he’d carried her cases upstairs, he could hardly breathe and collapsed wheezing onto the bed.

‘How was the tour?’

‘So so, great houses, great performances, but Rodney died.’ Abby was angrily crashing coat-hangers along rails to make more room.

‘I know — I’m desperately sorry.’

‘Whatever for? You only met him once.’

‘I knew what he meant to you.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’m exhausted.’ Then, knowing she was being vile, added, ‘You look wiped out, too.’

‘I’ve been working on stuff for the Appleton.’

‘What have you chosen?’

‘A Bach prelude, Liszt’s B Minor Sonata, a little suite of Boris’s. Great that he’s gone to Number Ten in the Charts.’

‘Great that the orchestra’s gone to Number Ten,’ corrected Abby sharply, crashing pots and bottles down on her dressing-table.

‘What are you doing in the second round?’

‘Chopin Etudes, the Grande Polonaise, a couple of Debussy Preludes and the Waldstein.’

‘Not the Appassionata?’

Marcus blushed. ‘I made such a cock-up at Cotchester.’

That was what he’d decided to play today, but such was his panic and indecision, nothing sounded any good and he kept changing his mind. There was music all over the floor of his normally tidy studio.

Helen, who hadn’t recovered from Rannaldini disappearing with Flora after The Creation, hadn’t helped by ringing at all hours.

‘I thought she’d cheer up when she heard about Flora and George. But she seems curiously pissed off that Flora’s landed such an ace bloke. She’s already channelled her suspicions in another direction, some Czech pianist, called Natalia, who’s entered for the Appleton, and evidently Rannaldini’s seeing a lot of Hermione.’

‘Helen shouldn’t hassle you,’ fumed Abby, finding a genuine excuse for fury. ‘How can you concentrate when she’s on your back all the time?’

‘It’s OK. She’s got to dump somewhere.’

Abby was frantic for Marcus to make love to her, but when he almost shrank away, she manufactured a row, seized the nearest Barbour and stormed out for a walk.

There were lights on in The Bordello, but finding herself helplessly drawn towards them, she realized it was only the setting sun shining across the lake, turning both water and window-panes to gold. She had never physically ached for someone so much in her life as Viking.

By the time she had reached the end of the lake, the sun had deepened to blazing vermilion, its reflection now cooling its burning body in the lake. Oh God, if only it were as easy to extinguish desire.

Delving in the Barbour pocket for a tissue to wipe her eyes she found, amid the debris of leaves and wild flowers, a torn-up letter in Marcus’s handwriting. Piecing it together with trembling hands she read:


My darling, darling, darling A,

I am dying for you, I can’t go on. I never believed it was possible to miss anyone so much or so impossible to suppress my desperate, desperate longing.

Then there was a quote from Pushkin, ending: ‘What can my heart do but burn, it has no choice.’

How darling of Marcus to leave the poem in Russian, knowing she understood the language. Abby felt ashamed but happier. Two loves have I of comfort and despair, and she must concentrate on the love that comforted her.

Going into H.P. Hall after a sleepless night worrying how many of the musicians would know by now about her and Viking, she was cheered by a wonderfully funny piece of news.

On the notice-board next to details for the Appleton where tails and black dresses would be worn was an announcement that Sonny Parker’s Interruption had won a Gramophone Award for the best CD of contemporary music.

That would mean another hundred thousand pounds from Mother Parker.

Forgetting George was on sabbatical, Abby barged into his office for a giggle to find Miles heavily ensconced. George’s squashy leather sofas, his high-tech toys, his models of tower blocks and Regency façades, the fridge full of drink, the Edward Burra and the Keith Vaughan, all had been replaced by a functional oatmeal hessian sofa, a totally empty desk and some very uncomfortable chairs. The decorators had obviously been at work, slapping beige emulsion over the shredded ginger suede walls.

‘I thought George had only gone for three months,’ said Abby aghast.

‘Everything’s very much in the air at the moment,’ said Miles coolly. ‘Please don’t let that cat in and I’d prefer it if you knocked.’

‘Very minimalist,’ Abby looked round the room, then attempting a joke, because she suddenly felt so nervous, ‘to match Jessica’s minis.’

Miles ignored John Drummond’s piteous mewings.

‘Jessica’s left,’ he said curtly.

‘Whatever for? She really cheered us up with those typing errors.’

‘Important for morale,’ Miles smiled thinly, ‘for the orchestra to realize we’re prepared to make cuts on the admin side as well.’

‘But the sponsors just adored her.’

‘Actually she left of her own accord. She realized she would be expected, now George isn’t around, to do a little more than pour champagne and forget to hand in lottery tickets.

‘Far more interestingly,’ Miles cracked his knuckles joyfully, ‘Rannaldini has just been appointed musical director of the CCO,’ then, at Abby’s look of horror, continued, ‘He’ll still retain his directorships in New York, Berlin and Tokyo, of course.’

‘Then he won’t have time to look after the CCO,’ snapped Abby. ‘They’ll be short-changed like everyone else.’

‘Course they won’t. Don’t be so needlessly spiteful. The Arts Council are delighted,’ said Miles looking equally pleased, ‘and having someone of Sir Roberto’s calibre near by should put you all on your mettle.’

Miles certainly hadn’t purchased any kid gloves in Spain.

‘So Rannaldini’s now in a prime position to merge us and the CCO,’ blurted out Abby. Oh why couldn’t she keep her trap shut?

‘Rannaldini’s a wonderful musician — ’ for a second Miles’s eyes contained a flicker of genuine warmth — ‘and a natural disciplinarian.’

‘Viking wouldn’t stand for that.’

‘Viking’s left us, too,’ said Miles silkily.

‘W-w-what?’ whispered Abby, bruising her spine as she collapsed onto one of the uncomfortable chairs. ‘Where? When? How?’

‘He resigned this morning.’

‘But why?’

‘To be quite honest, I think he’s bored. He’s been here eight years. Nothing to keep him. Should have gone to London years ago.’

‘But he’s the best player we’ve got and he’s under contract.’

‘We thought he was, too, and that we could hold him at least until after the Appleton, but when we checked, it ran out last month. There was nothing we could do.’

‘But all the contracts have been renewed.’

‘It seems they haven’t. George has been a shade lax.’

‘But this is awful. Viking lifted the orchestra with every note.’

As if in agreement, John Drummond’s black paw appeared supplicatingly under the door.

‘Viking is a dangerous influence,’ said Miles briskly. ‘Quinton is far less erratic, more responsible and can’t wait to sort out the section; Rannaldini agrees.’

‘What’s he got to do with it?’ hissed Abby.

‘When he did The Creation he thought Viking was very overrated. Big fish in a small polluted pond, to quote yourself, and didn’t he know it.’ Miles rose to his feet. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Abby, after your little tantrum in Toledo in front of the chairman and his wife, not to mention Nicholas and Hilly,’ his voice thickened lasciviously as he mentioned her name, ‘I thought you would be delighted he’s left us. Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he said chillingly.