Behind the Wall: TotenUniverse, #8

By C Harrison

The discovery of four corpses in a London basement releases a trail of suspicion and expectation. Are the three women and one man the remains of Toten Herzen? The four members of Toten Herzen disagree.

 

Rob Wallet, still searching for answers to the disappearance of Peter Miles, is drawn to Sigmaringen and a series of local killings which may or may not be the work of a werewolf. His investigation is distracted by Toten Herzen's unauthorised biographer, Raven's gaggle of hapless friends, and a local couple's insistence they own a car that once belonged to Adolf Hitler.

 

Susan Bekker finalises the soundtrack of Quarter Moon by teaming up with an accident prone conductor, a tight fisted folk musician and an overpowering cellist. Surrounded by sponsorship deals and lucrative endorsements she begins to calculate her own worth and how to exploit it.

 

But the wall of a London basement is not the only barrier to unsolved mysteries as Frieda's circus in Luxembourg conceals a deadly secret of its own and Wallet's old house becomes the centre of attention and throws the most telling suspicion yet on his motives for bringing Toten Herzen back from the dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C Harrison
• Release date: Apr 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393650584

Book preview

An important announcement

Several months had passed since four desiccated corpses turned up in a basement in London. Three females and a male, their skulls grinning like delighted tourists, lay in wait for a small team of builders who dropped their lump hammers and scrambled for fresh air and cigarettes. And when the hole in the breeze block wall was enlarged by a forensics team and the vomit washed away from the pavement and the traumatised plasterer told he couldn't claim sick pay because his condition was exaggerated (playing golf every week gave the game away for him) the Metropolitan Police arrived at an investigatory dead end.

They called in the experts MI5, but their expertise was limited. They turned to the specialists MI6, but there was nothing special about the help they offered. Instead, the Met, under pressure and under staffed, received help from a group of men and women dressed for a paintballing session.

Don't take the piss out of these clothes. Pierre Dremba marched down a corridor ahead of his colleague Nadine Cloesters. Trying to keep up, two assistant commissioners and a detective inspector. Almost a full pack.

I still don't know why Cressida wasn't invited, said one of the assistant commissioners. It looks like a snub.

It looks suspicious, muttered his colleague.

And that was exactly the point. Split 'em up, set the top dogs on each other. Stir up a bit of rancour. Dremba took his phone out of a thigh pocket and asked the uniformed officer next to him what the words meant. That one. Plod.

Very funny.

Who is Old Bill?

I've no idea. Maybe it's the brand of clothing behind your clown outfit.

Boys, boys. Nadine kept the chastising to a minimum.

There was a long walk to the press conference and the lifts weren't working. Dremba needed a distraction to take his mind off the smoking ban. Someone once told me there was a handbook for new recruits.

I didn't know that. Nadine played along.

Given to new recruits at Henley. He checked his phone again. It had all the safe legal phrases the rozzers could use without jeopardising an arrest. Halt in the name of the law, you're coming with me, my lad, I want a word with you, that sort of thing.

They hit a bottleneck at the top of a flight of steps. Now I know why the French hate their own police force, said the uniformed officer.

Well, at least they don't call us, Dremba chose another word, filth? Look at these. He shared the information with Nadine. Woodentops. Bizzies.

That's from Liverpool, said Nadine.

How do you know that?

Some random fact I picked up long ago.

She's full of random facts, said Dremba to one of the assistant commissioners trying to push ahead. Most of it from other people's heads. Rozzers. That sounds a bit upper class. Dremba switched to his upper class voice. I say boys, better leg it before the rozzers get here, what.

He didn't mean to cause a scuffle in a busy police station, but the detective inspector was up for it. Highly strung, tense, the one handed the poisoned chalice of fronting the press conference and now it was getting to him. He grabbed Dremba's arm and found himself with a fistful of hermetic symbolism.

None of this shit is gonna help, mate.

Tell me about it.

Nadine ignored Dremba's grimace.

It's the one thing he's said that's correct.

We don't know that.

What's the matter, Pierre? You worried these badges won't keep the devils away?

Shut the fuck up, woodentop.

Detective Inspector Lovelace paused at the door of the press room and considered the set up: three chairs but only one microphone. He glanced at Nadine and Dremba, waited for the assistant commissioners to join him, but not being privy to higher level conversations he was forced to enter the press room alone. He made a hash of adjusting the microphone and handled the chair like an unconscious drunkard.

You gonna let him sink on his own? said Dremba.

I understand operational secrecy, but this is a silence too far. You have to give us some indication of what this press conference is about. Assistant Commissioner one offered the press enough concerned body language for them to start all sorts of rumours without a word being spoken, and if the press could see the sweat on his colleague's forehead, well. . . .

We've told you why, said Dremba. Are you deaf?

You have a script, said Nadine. Stick to it.

Both commissioners paused, ran their gaze up and down the sleeve of Nadine's coveralls and tried to calculate the combination of numbers, the relevance of the shapes, the meaning of the symbols. Baffled and frustrated they walked with very heavy footsteps and sat down without acknowledging the gathered journalists.

When they were as settled as they could be Lovelace bent his microphone stalk backwards and cleared his throat.

Thanks for coming here. He spoke out of range of the microphone. Assistant Commissioner two tutted. Thanks for coming here. I'll keep this brief and then take questions from you. No response. I'm Detective Inspector Paul Lovelace and I'm temporarily heading the investigation into the bodies discovered in Dunlace Road, north east London. You all know them as the Bodies in the Basement. My colleague Chief Superintendent Brian Heron is currently on special leave and won't be back for . . . several weeks. I'm not sure. It's not my concern. And no one else was bothered judging by the reaction.

Anyway, what I wanted to say today was to reposition the investigation. His tie didn't need straightening, but he straightened it anyway. The four victims have now been identified as Susan Bekker, Denise Vincent, Elaine Daley and Rene van Voors, known collectively as Toten Herzen. Cameras came out of stand-by mode, smartphones were raised. In addition to the identities, which had been the subject of speculation for a number of months, I can also confirm that the house once belonged to Michael Powder, A&R manager of Crass Records, Toten Herzen's original record label. This information was public knowledge, but we weren't in a position to confirm the details until now. However, I am able to confirm the details. . . .

Lovelace's attention was drawn to a private discussion at the back of the room. Several journalists clustered around a smartphone. Is something wrong?

It's a livestream. The journalist scanned the ceiling. There's a camera in here streaming us. It's all on YouTube.

What?

Lovelace couldn't get a signal on his phone. Assistant commissioner one found YouTube first and shared his phone screen. For several seconds the room's occupants huddled and separated, huddled and separated, their heads looking down and then up as if the novelty of being spied on was a modern day parlour game. Nadine studied her feet, Dremba circled and muttered the lyrics to an Algerian rap song. He checked his phone and nodded. The live stream on YouTube was attracting comments. They were pouring in. 'Confirmed, it's them,' 'TH are the Bodies in the Basement.' Nadine leaned over with her own phone. 'The portal to hell has been found.'

Any questions? said Lovelace. The journalists ignored him, gathered their coats and bags and pushed their way out. He stopped one of them. What's the rush?

We're getting down there before the fanatics turn up. You'll probably have to close that road now.

When they were gone Lovelace confronted his colleagues. Well that went well.

Didn't it just, said Assistant Commissioner one late for his next meeting. He tried not to barge Dremba's shoulder on the way out, but stepped on Nadine's foot and surged away down the corridor without apologising.

When Assistant Commissioner two approached, Dremba said, Your co-operation is much appreciated.

Fuck you. He turned back. Just how well is your strategy progressing? Three thousand three hundred murdered in Romania? When you piss off back to Lyon we're the ones dealing with the riots in Hammersmith and Fulham and Brentford.

Riots? said Dremba. You sit in your fucking office while my colleagues drive through riots risking their lives. You turn your nose up at the shit printed on my clothes. Look at yours. You look like a fucking idiot-

Pierre. Nadine pushed him away. We do need to get to the other side of London.

What? Lovelace must have been psychic to know he was tasked with driving through London at four in the afternoon.

Relax. There'll be plenty of rozzers on their way now. Let plod up in Stoke Newington deal with it.

Assistant Commissioner two was gone leaving Lovelace to endure his fate, endure another day in the Met. Where was the camera? he said. Why didn't you tell me you were streaming it?

Nadine waited for a supplementary question.

Am I missing something here? said Lovelace.

No, she said.

Who told you to stream it?

Why do you think it was us?

The tiny camera was stuck to the frame of the window blinds, small enough to look like part of the drawstring mechanism. We didn't want you performing. Dremba retrieved it. Come on, let's go. How long do you think it will take?

One hour. Lovelace led the way out. The daylight had no warmth, no enthusiasm, or it could have been that the heat had travelled on ahead of them eager to see the chaos that would be developing along Dunlace Road. The traffic couldn't make its mind up, some of it streaming towards the north east, propelled by morbid curiosity, the rest of it heading south west out of fear.

They spotted the first banner on the A? moving north towards Peckham. A flag printed with the Crest flapping and rattling alongside a panting Renault Clio, the weight of malevolence forcing one of its hubcaps loose. It could have been a coincidence, but a second flag ten minutes later suggested a gathering storm. When you notice one you see them everywhere, said Dremba.

Lovelace's hands gripped the steering wheel as if he was in agony. That's Toten Herzen's logo isn't it?

It's a symbol, not a logo. Get your definitions right, said Dremba. The significance of symbols can't be underestimated. He preferred sitting in the back of a car. It made him feel important, but to an outsider he must have looked like the villain being escorted to the nearest nick. Nadine up front, calm, enjoying the London scenery, Lovelace harried and bothered, hunting for gaps, for opportunities to race out of junctions, jumping amber lights.

Dremba leaned between the front seats. If Dugarry says we have a problem, we have a problem.

We do not have a problem, said Nadine. They were his idea remember.

His idea included rotating the symbols. Make them seasonal. We might as well work naked if they're ineffective.

Tell that to Leonard. I'm not your tailor, Pierre.

What exactly do they mean? said Lovelace. The symbols?

Incantations, said Dremba sitting back. Defences, numbers for protection, sigils. It's all a code.

And you believe it?

It's worked so far. He leaned forward again. But for how long?

When we get back to Lyon we'll sort something out. Nadine pointed at a small Ford festooned with stickers, most of them offensive, all of them related to Toten Herzen. Follow that car. She smiled. I've always wanted to say that.

The drive to the house was an arduous stop start journey. Lovelace parked on a pavement, turned on the car's hazard warning lights and lit a cigarette. The journalist was right. They would have to close the road.

News travels so fast in the internet age. Nadine stepped out of the car eager to read the minds of the people streaming towards the house. Black was a common element, peculiar hairstyles were everywhere and the street filled with the honking and blaring of car horns, the nasty gaseous puffing of diesel exhausts and a minibus trapped in the middle of it.

Dremba leaned on the roof of the car. They'll tear it down brick by brick if the police don't get here soon.

The animals began to arrive. Two by two, one by one, mammal, bird, reptile, alien. The bizarre iconography of Toten Herzen fanhood. Livestock, domesticated, wild species, stuffed, plastic, ceramic, metal. An inflatable crocodile crowdsurfed the mohicans, occasionally knocked off course by a flying squirrel or bison. A monkey launched itself up the road, its gangly arms flailing like furry windmill sails. An outstretched human arm grabbed it and threw it on.

The trailing edge of the crowd crept backwards towards the car and still people kept coming. The murmuring turned to shouts, the shouts to chants, a single two-syllable word, 'Toten.' Plastic bottles flew, liquids skimmed overhead and a stray Melton Mowbray pork pie hit the windscreen.

Such a sharing crowd, Nadine said to Dremba relieved to get a cigarette in his mouth again. That sense of community.

This community gave me a fucking good kicking in Helsinki.

They were just being affectionate. What I really like about England, said Nadine above the growing din, is the way the police respond so quickly.

They'll be here, said Lovelace. London traffic, you know how it is. We've just come through it.

Dremba laughed. We set out an hour ago. Has anyone called them?

Not that I know of.

Have you requested back up?

No.

Why was your colleague suspended again?

He had wandering hands. What's that got to do with anything.

Wandering hands. He took a long draw on his cigarette. Do you want go, Nadine?

Yes. No, hang on. Look at this.

The animals headed east to west and bits of number 23 Dunlace Road headed west to east. The front door was the first item to pass along the human conveyor belt. A deep blue colour, heavy wood, the door knocker still attached. Four hands carried it above head height and following close behind a roll of carpet. The house was leaving brick by brick, window by window (none of which made it as far as Peckham Lane). And once the removable bits were gone the crowd started on the permanent fixtures. A scuffle broke out for a kitchen sink, someone swung a worktop, several metres of copper piping went past, carried vertically like a collection of bayoneted rifles.

The first police sirens entered the street. Now we can go, said Nadine.

What are they gonna do with it all? Dremba's cigarette flapped between his lips. I mean, what does he want with that length of skirting board?

Memento. Maybe he'll get it signed.

Police motorbikes harried their way through the crowd growing dense now and filling every part of the street. Residents watched from windows, their postage stamp gardens full of intruders, their car roofs adrift amongst the bodies. Lovelace hesitated, waited for a gap, gasped and sighed and bounced around his driving seat.

Sit back here, let me get us out, said Dremba. He swapped places with Lovelace who closed his eyes when Dremba reversed as if he was in an empty field. Bodies bumped and thudded off the car's bodywork and an urgent corridor formed, strewn with dropped bricks, lost roof tiles and an abandoned seagull glued to a wooden base. Eventually human traffic was replaced by metal traffic and Dremba sped away.

Well now that you've started the Apocalypse what's next? said Lovelace.

Nothing you need to worry about. Nadine ran her hand along the sigils of her sleeve. We're done here. Thank you.

Off on the wrong foot

Big orchestras needed big rooms and the recording studios built to house them never felt like real recording studios. Remember Abbey Road, said Susan. Dee strolled two steps behind and shook her head.

We were never in Abbey Road.

I didn't say we were, but I've seen pictures and films of it. These big studios always look like school halls. They're not very . . . not very. . . .

Small?

No. Not very. . . .

Big?

No.

Nice?

No. Not very. . . .

Friendly? Accommodating? Waterproof? Good in a fight? Kind to the skin?

What are you talking about?

I'm waiting for you to come to the point. Not very what?

They're not really us.

The sound room needed decorating, the equipment was suspiciously old, at least five years out of date. Dee kicked the reverb plate to see if it was a real one. If we turn this computer on I bet it's running Windows XP.

Dmitri recommended it.

Dmitri lives just up the road, that's why he recommended it.

It is the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra we're talking about. You can't go shifting orchestras around Europe.

You said it's not really us. Every recording studio sound room had a revolving chair and Dee seemed to gravitate towards them. She spun around speaking at every rotation she faced Susan. Who's us? You and me? Toten Herzen? Someone else you're not telling me about?

I guess the spirit of Toten Herzen follows us. Wherever one or two of us are gathered, there you will find the bleached carcass of Toten Herzen. Susan leaned back against the mixing desk. Wonder what Rene's doing?

He'll be shagging his guitar playing mate. Wonder what Elaine's doing?

There were rumours. Rumours of dead birds falling out of the sky in the greater Lincoln area. Rumours of UFOs landing in the salt marshes near the coast. Rumours of black helicopters, figures over nine feet tall wandering the copses and hedgerows and the name Elaine Daley featured in every one of them. Regardless of context, terrestrial or otherwise, animal, vegetable or mineral, the grisly presence of an out-of-control Elaine Daley joined them all together. Without the distraction of Toten Herzen, according to the conspiracy theorists, she was free to run amok.

That dead farmer in Yorkshire didn't help things, said Dee.

What dead farmer?

The one found with a cow's head instead of his own.

What?

The conversation stopped when Phileas arrived. Phileas wasn't the best sound engineer in the world. He looked like one of the Twelve Apostles and when he first met Dee and Susan claimed he had never heard of Uriah Heep. He was joking, trying to make out he was younger than he actually was (thirty-seven) and wore a tee shirt with the words 'my other tee-shirt is a Ferrari.' But what he lacked in talent and social skills he made up for in discretion. Phileas loved life and didn't want to throw it away by telling people Dee Vincent was secretly recording vocals for the Quarter Moon soundtrack.

Cold outside, he said unpeeling layers of scarves and coats.

Germany in late winter usually is, said Dee. It's being so far away from the warming waters of the Atlantic. I know that because I read it in a book.

Phileas switched on the equipment. I had a book once. You read them, don't you?

I thought we'd agreed, said Susan, you do not have a sense of humour, so please stop trying to be funny.

Ready to go he waited for Dee to vacate the chair. Do we have to do all the overdubs? Can't we just layer the same track?

No. It will sound digital. Weird. Each overdub will have a subtle difference. It'll be worth the effort.

No, it won't. You're just stretching things out so you'll get paid more money.

Ever since Susan first picked up a guitar she had considered herself to be a musician, but she had a blind spot when it came to musical notation. Guitar tabs, fine. Notes, quavers, semi-quavers, all the shapes and lines, Neved loved it. He'd write everything in musical notation if he could and his manuscripts had a flourish and embellishment of a man lost in his work. Susan scratched her ear and handed the sheet music to Dee.

It's the Polka, Susan said.

The what?

The Polka. The scene is Edinburgh. There's a gathering of people to celebrate some treaty and a rumour starts that a Dark Future craft is approaching, hovering low over the Edinburgh rooftops. Susan had still images on her camera. A mixture of film frames, on set photographs, and a CGI render of Edinburgh cowering beneath a giant black spaceship.

I wish I was in this film, said Dee. I wouldn't mind being one of those Dark Future ladies. The baddies always have the most fun don't they, Phileas? Phileas?

Phileas had gone. The lights in the sound booth dipped and he appeared in the glass adjusting the microphones where Dee would record the chants and vocal effects of the Polka. It doesn't sound like a Polka, said Phileas when he came back.

The Polka is the name of the Dark Future ship, said Susan. She found a shot of a Dark Future woman and agreed with Dee. The baddies always had more fun. Always looked like they were enjoying being the baddies. Come on. It's two in the morning and we haven't done anything yet.

Blame him, Dee pushed past Phileas. Takes hours to make yourself look that scruffy, eh Phileas?

-

The vocals were done before five thirty and Phileas was so exhausted Susan carried his sleeping body back to his apartment. She left him in what she thought was his apartment, but turned out to be the one next door when he showed up for work the following night. His neighbours almost called the police when he failed to explain how he had got in.

Neved shook his head and waited for Clarice Veltin to join them both in a conference room in the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg.

How was I to know it wasn't his apartment? I'm not UPS. Susan never attended a meeting with anything other than her attitude. Neved however insisted on surrounding himself with notebooks, a tablet, his phone, reference text books and a ring binder of his beloved music sheets.

I think Clarice knows about Dee, he said.

So?

There are singers here in Nuremberg.

Not like Dee.

That's true. She's also bothered about these bodies in London.

Clarice bundled through the door and dropped several bags onto the carpet.

What's wrong with the bodies in London, said Susan.

Good evening to you also. Let me gather myself and I'll explain. She was ready several minutes later. Are you the real Susan Bekker?

I'm sorry?

The table in the conference room was enormous and not designed for meetings with three people, especially when two of them sat at the opposite end of the table. I find it difficult to put into words, but there are so many odd rumours about you, about Toten Herzen, about everything. Now there are these bodies found which everyone is saying are the bodies of Toten Herzen. Europe is convulsing with all this terrorism and executions and in the middle of all this my orchestra is working with a woman who claims to be a vampire.

There's not a lot I can do about most of that. I'm not responsible for the rumours. Or the bodies. Or the terrorism. I'm a bit tied up to be dealing in any of that.

That's true, said Neved.

And on top of all that we have to conduct business at night. I mean, is that really necessary?

It's not so bad at this time of year, Clarice. It goes dark at four, said Neved.

Roll on summer, said Clarice. Seijo Takemazu refuses to pander to these demands. He says they're unnecessary and pretentious. He won't work with you after five p.m.

Seijo's a bit under pressure at the moment, said Neved. His credit card was cloned, he's lashing out.

I heard about that. His debit card was cloned also. And a store rewards card.

Look, said Neved, I can work with him during the day. The orchestration is my responsibility anyway. Susan doesn't have to be there.

I thought Susan was writing the soundtrack?

She is.

I am.

There's a lot more to writing a soundtrack than the orchestra.

Clarice wasn't convinced and Susan didn't like Seijo Takemazu anyway. She didn't know his financial identity had been stolen either and wasn't too bothered. Neved, caught in the middle did his best, but his abilities didn't extend to people management or online fraud. And he had the small matter of dealing with his dead wife being brought back to life.

At the end of the working day, or early morning for the mortals, he would go home and on very rare occasions Lena would be waiting for him. Susan had watched them make love and then go their separate ways, the satisfaction short lived, the pleasure transient. Neved rarely talked about Lena, but whenever her name did come up he would set off on long anecdotes about St. Petersburg and the 1980s and inevitably find some torturous way of conjuring up a florid description of Lena's hair or fragrance or sparkle in her eyes.

If she was honest with herself, Susan didn't like seeing Neved with Lena.

And she didn't like Seijo Takemazu at all, whoever he was with. He was too vertical when he walked, as if he was trying to get his head as far away from the ground as possible. And the same head would peer across the top of the orchestra's heads, a deliberate avoidance of eye contact. He kept his arms down when he conducted, a bend at the elbow was all he needed to keep time, but when the music swelled and pitched he would start to roll and sway from side to side pleading with the violas to shout, demanding more violence from the brass, imploring the violins to weep as he wept (on the inside).

At the end of the session, he sweated like a horse, but kept himself upright in order to talk over Neved's head. Susan's height continued to pose a problem.

I think the latter half lacks expectation, said Takemazu. He turned the pages of Neved's sheet music. Here, G major. Not a key I would use. It needs a flat. Throw the music into the major scale and then out, he twisted his hand at the wrist, The flat upending the listener.

I see what you mean, Seijo. The reason for the major key is because of the scene in the film. At that point a new presence appears, unexpected, but there's a feeling of relief when this thing, this huge craft appears over a hillside.

But is it relief? Takemazu hadn't seen the rushes of the scene Neved was describing. The script may not be so explicit, but the music can place that doubt in the mind of the viewer. Don't always be a slave to the script, Dmitri.

Susan nodded. She preferred not to agree with people she didn't like, but Takemazu had a point. Disney rewrote Frozen when they heard Let It Go.

What? said Neved.

Takemazu rolled his eyes. Disney? Frozen? You even utter those words in the same context as our music?

Our music? What do you mean our music? You haven't written this.

And neither have you, Susan. Apart from maybe, he thumbed through the sheet music, that note there. Was that your contribution?

Please, please, said Neved.

No, I did not write that note.

Please. Let's not argue again. You're both right. The music can complement and supplement the script. We have been trusted to bring an extra dimension to the film. I don't think Jens would have a problem with us, how can we say it, subverting the script.

Subversion is a good word, said Takemazu.

Jens Gol never shies away from a bit of subversion, said Susan.

I presume you know the meaning of the word. Takemazu left her to it and returned to his podium, ready to look above the heads of the orchestra again. We will introduce some subversion, he said, When I raise my right hand you will play G flat, not G. From the eighth bar, let's go.

I know what subversion means, Susan whispered. One of these days I'm going to subvert the blood supply to his head.

The music started. No, you're not, said Neved and when Takemazu raised his right hand the orchestra played G flat and Neved's world went into a euphoric tailspin. Takemazu was right. So right. He is very good.

Is he?

Oh yes. Susan, I'm going to ask him to look at everything.

-

As usual, as in any concert recital, the conductor left the podium and the orchestra behind, sent off in a din of applause. Takemazu finished rehearsals and took his polite adulation from the violinists and bassists and clarinet players and drummers. He offered an obligatory nod, turned to Neved and repeated the gesture.

He was barely out the room before a package arrived for him. Another one, said Neved, what is it this time?

The delivery guy shrugged, held out his device for Neved's horizontal line signature and darted away to his next drop off. The box gave nothing away, left upended with no clue to the contents other than a delivery label that had come from Seville.

Do you think he's ordered some oranges? said Susan.

The parcel was light, a box full of fresh air and being an internal delivery, EU country to EU country, had no customs label. He can pick it up tomorrow.

The route out of the building normally took three minutes, but on this occasion dragged on for half an hour. After the Seville parcel came the Leipzig package, smaller, heavier, a brick-sized lump of concentrated weight. Neved shook it, Susan sniffed it, but before they could even guess at the contents another parcel arrived.

Hello, hello. A package for Herr Takemazu. Can you sign for it please? The guy this time was from FedEx.

Herr Takemazu isn't here, said Neved.

Just need a signature.

What is it?

It's a hand-held device-

No, the package.

Whatever this one was fell into the light enough to carry one handed category. The man from FedEx placed it on top of the parcel from Seville.

What the fuck's going on? Susan signed for the package, a flamboyant x. Are they instruments?

I don't know.

There were two more parcels, local delivery companies this time, and then when the joke was getting beyond a joke the pizzas began to show up. We're not signing for pizzas, said Neved ushering the two competing delivery youths out of the door. This is his cloned card, he said to Susan whose attention was drawn to another large van rolling to a halt at the steps of the Meistersingerhalle.

The driver took a moment to figure out where he was, a confusion caused by his package. Is this, he checked his delivery note, Meistersingerhalle?

Yes. Neved stood guard on the steps.

You Seijo Takemazu?

Do I look Japanese?

The delivery driver had to take his glasses off to check. No, not really. I've got his wardrobe.

I'm sorry, his what?

The back of the truck was opened up to reveal an Aladdin's cave of household furniture, with Takemazu's bubble wrapped wardrobe pushing to climb out.

You have to take it back, said Susan.

I can't take it back, it's been paid for.

Actually, it hasn't, said Neved. Herr Takemazu has had his credit and debit cards cloned. All this stuff turning up has been bought by someone else. He's not here to sign for it and we're not signing for it.

Aha. The delivery driver rolled up his delivery sheet and tapped his chin. You can't make use of it, can you?

If you laid it flat I could sleep in it. Susan laughed. The others didn't get the joke.

Neved's car was in sight when he had second thoughts. Perhaps he has ordered it all. We should take it to him, Susan.

A wardrobe?

Not the wardrobe, no, but the other stuff. It was only light. It'll fit in the car. If we take it to his home he might be grateful to you.

I don't care.

But Neved persuaded her. They loaded the Seville parcel and the Leipzig package and the brick and the two other local products and set off for Takemazu's house on the north side of the city. He was not delighted to see them.

For a moment Susan tried to figure out what was wrong with the house, but it was only when they followed a grumpy Takemazu through his front door that all became apparent.

What happened to your roof, Seijo? said Neved.

Take my advice, Dmitri, do not construct a green roof on your house. Takemazu inspected the door frame to the kitchen. Inside, his wife sat at the breakfast bar and watched a makeshift television arrangement where the screen had been hung from a peg reserved for herbs and spices. Alongside it, an array of knives stretched towards the window and there, in the mischievous light of garden lamps, a lump of earth, a solid slice of the ground lay like a discarded mattress across the view through the glass.

That is the roof.

What's it doing there? Susan smirked.

Annoying me, said Takemazu. Heavy rain, the weight has shifted and brought it down. Not fastened securely, Dmitri. He exchanged an angry set of sentences with his wife who looked bored until she set off and then poured out her own fury as if Takemazu had pulled down the roof by himself.

Please, come through here.

In the lounge, away from the dead roof Takemazu tried to sit down, but couldn't decide if it was safe to do so. There are other issues. The roof has appeared at a bad time.

We know about the cards, Seijo, said Neved.

Yes, that's all in order. They have been cancelled.

Good, said Susan. We have a car load of parcels for you.

What?

They came today. She wanted to laugh out loud, but there were times when Susan could be very disciplined. I think one of them is a solid gold bar.

Takemazu sat down.

Have you ordered anything from Seville? said Neved.

Seville? Takemazu's wife appeared again and harangued him in Japanese.

Dmitri, can you do me a very big favour?

I'm not driving the parcel back to Seville, Seijo. Neved's smile had no effect.

No, no. Please drive me to the police station.

Sure.

Susan insisted on going with them. Takemazu would have driven himself, but the number plates of his car had been cloned and he had already accumulated twelve parking tickets, two speeding fines and a charge of driving away from a petrol station.

The police won't follow that one up because they have the other car on CCTV. It is clearly not mine.

Not having much luck, Seijo, said Susan.

As you might say yourself, Susan, shit happens.

Haven't they caught anyone yet?

No.

There was something else bothering him. He bit his nails in a way that he never did in the studio. On the podium, next to the piano, amongst the oboe players, he was the epitome of elegance, authority and poise, but here he was slumped and hunched, eating himself from the fingertips in and staring dead ahead as if he expected the next manhole cover to pop up and produce an alien monster.

Ji and Han are in trouble again.

Oh, you're joking. Neved tutted and shook his head, but didn't share the knowledge. Susan didn't find out until they arrived at the police station and two boisterous teenagers were released from their cells like a pair of untrained terriers. They scattered out of the building leaving Takemazu to tidy up, sign them out, and collect some belongings that included several spray cans and the head of a jet wash. The police couldn't be bothered confiscating them.

Takemazu leaned heavily on the reception counter. Where were they this time?

The technical college. Is that where they attend?

Yes, that's where they begrudgingly attend. Perhaps they would prefer their old college in Tokyo.

That's a long bus ride, Susan muttered enjoying the spectacle of Seijo Takemazu being reduced in height and forced to stare at the ground. His sense of honour intensified his shame, the family disgraced in a foreign country, his name soiled by two brats with aerosol cans.

This is all your fault. Takemazu brushed her aside as he stomped out. In the car park, Ji and Han were already sitting on the bonnet and the roof of Neved's car, Neved sat inside like a character out of a children's animation, the children swinging their feet and letting their expensive training shoes hammer the bodywork in a cacophonous and somewhat post-modern rhythm.

Takemazu barked at them to get down, but they stayed put.

You're coming down, Tinkerbell, said Susan. She grabbed Ji by the ankle and dragged her off the car, the inhuman strength lobbing the astonished teenager several metres across the car park. Would you like me to teach you how to fly? she said to Han.

He shook his head, but the ordeal wasn't over. Ji and Han sat either side of Susan on the back seat, the cold inducing an uncontrollable tremble that devoured their teenage intransigence. Every time Han attempted to speak Susan placed a frozen arm around his shoulder and whispered, When we get you home I'm going to tell you a nice long ghost story about a boy and a girl and a hungry fucking vampire.

Back home the brats dived for their bedrooms, but their continued presences thudded through the house. Susan followed them, tore the wall sockets out and instantly killed the music. Sorry, I fucking hate J-Pop. In the kitchen, Takemazu continued the verbal punch up with his wife. Neved kept himself a safe distance from the argument and the knives.

What did you mean back there, said Susan, this is all my fault? I didn't pull the roof off your house.

You. Your kind. Your influence. The reason children no longer respect their parents' authority is because of the indiscipline bred by the likes of you.

The house is quiet because of me.

Only because you scared them to death. Tomorrow they will be back to normal.

I can come back.

I don't want you to come back.

No was the same in every language and Susan Bekker was the one subject that united Takemazu and his wife. He ranted about falling standards, about humans regressing, about youth culture taking humanity back to the stone age. In between the words his wife agreed, nodded, cheered him on and kept pointing at the roof as if all the evils in the world had conspired to create the sodden tempest that turned the green roof into a roof garden and then a real garden.

I think that's all a bit harsh, said Neved.

His calming influence drew Takemazu out of the kitchen and past his daughter, propped up against her bedroom door. Her forensic stare followed him with contempt and then beckoned Susan into her room. Clothes, USB sticks, cushions and shoes flew around until she found a CD case. I lose CD, she said in a stiff baritone English. You autograph, please?

What? The case was cracked, but the inside cover remained intact, a pristine copy of Malandanti.

CD gone, but have illegal stream.

Illegal stream? You shouldn't be listening to illegal streams. Not of my music anyway. Give me a pen.

Ji's pen was gold and the weight suggested it might have been solid gold. Here. Autograph collected and CD case flung back into the pile of teenage debris, she escorted Susan through to brother Han's room. He sat cross legged on the bed and furiously tapped away at a battered laptop. They spoke in Japanese and then Han rotated the laptop.

Choose gift, he said.

A gift? Who for?

Him, said Ji.

Him? Who, your dad?

They both grinned and Susan's embryonic perception kicked in. This gift, can it come from anywhere, Seville say?

They both laughed.

You cheeky little fuckers. Show me.

Han's laptop was open at the Prada webpage. Give me that. Susan took control and searched for umbrellas. They sold them. Three hundred euros each. Let's have, what, twenty?

Oh yes, they liked that. Giggling like a baby, Han placed the order, produced the new credit card (the one that had replaced the stolen version) and ordered six thousand euros worth of umbrellas.

Doesn't matter if it rains now. Susan left the Takemazu juniors to their hysterics and high fives and eternal gratitude.

Han called after her. Susan.

What?

He held up his middle finger. Fuck you, yeah. And laughed again.

A list of grievances

Neved groaned, a long grumbling rumble across the top of his piano. He waved the sheet of paper, the incriminating, upsetting piece of paper listing the complaints, anxieties, disturbances and general malcontent of Seijo Takemazu.

I knew he was trouble when we first met, said Susan. The choice of chairs in the rehearsal room threw her equilibrium.

You asked him to his face who he was. Neved read the list a second time.

I was entitled to ask. I've never heard of Seijo Takemazu. He's not like Caruso or Handel or anyone famous.

Caruso and Handel are both dead. What century do you live in?

In Susan's defence, Takemazu was not the regular conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. Drafted in to cover absence due to illness his protests were ignored and he was reminded the orchestra had a contract with Susan Bekker. Collaborate on the Quarter Moon soundtrack or else. The arrangement was doomed from the start.

He doesn't like your tattoos, said Neved, or your working hours, your choice of instrument, the way you dress, your propensity for bad language and the way you babble in Dutch when you don't get your own way. His words not mine. He finds you provocative, malevolent, devious, not sure why he thinks you're devious. Arrogant, stupid, always a bad combination in my opinion, lazy.

Is that because I'm not around during the day? He thinks I'm lazy?

Possibly. He clearly doesn't know what I know. Neved rested his arm and rubbed his eyes. I wonder what he'd say if he knew the truth. He ran the edge of his spectacles down the sheet. Yes, here. He finds you cold, but he doesn't say if he means that literally.

He doesn't have to work with me. Susan finally sat down on a high stool. I thought he respected you. Or does he dislike you because you're Russian?

He seems to get along with me. The question is, Susan, is this latest list of objections the death knell for his involvement? There was another page Neved hadn't noticed and it contained information, another objection that had him stumped. He chewed the tips of his spectacles.

What?

It says his kids like you. What does that mean? He's holding that against you? His kids like you? He groaned again. If he pulls out it will cost him? That's not our concern. Delaying the project is our concern and we're already behind schedule. I really don't want another phone call from Jens Gol.

I've told you how to deal with that. Put him on speaker phone and sit at the other side of the room.

But then he can't hear me.

Oh, shit. Susan reached out and punched a microphone. Hang on a minute. What if. . . .?

What if what?

Susan grinned. What if he met someone so dislikable he'd actually welcome being in the same room with me.

Is that possible? Before Susan could answer Neved produced a name. Ah. Yes. He hasn't met Dee yet, has he?

Let me make a phone call.

-

The plan would have to wait. Takemazu was shifting his directorial weight in a way that had dragged the roof off his house. Neved thought it was a great idea to involve Takemazu in the writing process but he was taking over. He had a special red pen that he would wield like a small katana, wiping out weeks of composing, slicing in half page after page of arrangements Neved had crafted in the small hours.

Look at this. He shook a sheaf of pages in Susan's face. Red, red, red. The man's a maniac. I can't get through to him the arrangements must fit the film. I don't know why he has such a blind spot to the process. He's not an idiot, Susan. He knows this is a soundtrack not a symphony.

Told you so.

Told me what?

You shouldn't let him get involved in the writing. He's not here to write, he's here to conduct the band.

Orchestra.

Orchestra. Whatever. When Susan was relaxed she would sit on a high stool with her legs crossed and stroke the strings of her guitar as if she was stroking the neck of a dog. Her calm wound Neved up even more.

Someone delivered a load of umbrellas yesterday. I thought he was going to blame me for that.

There's no roof on his house. I would have thought he'd need an umbrella.

Twenty, Susan, at a cost of six thousand euros.

Lurking in the unlit corner of the sound room Phileas called out, Phone call for Susan.

Who is it?

Some guy with the loudest fucking voice I ever heard in my entire life. I don't know why he bothers using a phone. He doesn't need one.

Neved risked his hearing and took the call. It was his idea; contact Gol, warn him the soundtrack was going off track, that Takemazu needed to be taken on set and have the process rammed down his throat (Neved's exact expression).

Gol was up for that. There was a key scene being filmed on a soundstage outside Amsterdam and when Neved floated the idea to Takemazu he jumped at the chance to escape Nuremberg.

The roof is going back on, he said during the taxi ride to the airport. He filled the twenty minute ride with a single sentence in which he explained why his life was a crumbling mess. His wife blamed him for the kids growing up into two unbearable monsters, she blamed him for buying a house with a stupid roof on it, she blamed him for organised crime. . . .

She insists, insists I am mixed up with the Yakuza. That is the online crime, that is the cloned cards. Six thousand euros for umbrellas, Dmitri.

Yes, you told me Seijo. Do you really think the Yakuza would get at you by ordering a load of umbrellas?

It could be a coded sign. What am I saying? Of course not, my wife would say yes, but of course it isn't. I asked her if she was homesick, but she says no, she likes Germany, she likes the efficiency, the way people bow reminds her of being back home in Japan, but here they only bow once, it doesn't go on all afternoon.

The more he spoke the more deranged he became until Neved had to stop him and change the subject. I'm looking forward to meeting Anneke Melchor.

Finally, two hundred metres from the airport, Takemazu breathed in. Yes. Her voice could calm even that savage you work with.

The voice of Anneke Melchor had once been described as atomised gold and was growing in demand. She was in Amsterdam, performing a series of songs by Mahler and Gluck, a fleeting partner of the Royal Concertgebouw. The setting had both Neved and Takemazu quivering with expectation and if he admitted it, a chance for Neved to get away from the apocalyptic mayhem that Quarter Moon was turning into.

My wife thinks this is a business trip, said Takemazu in the airport queue for security.

It is a business trip, Seijo. You're here to visit the set of the film remember.

He remembered and then he was distracted when the security barrier lit up like a Christmas market. Every time he stepped through he set it off. Down to his socks, shirt and trousers he insisted he did not have a metal plate in his head or an artificial hip, but after receiving a vigorous double handed body search a teaspoon was found in the lining of his trousers; placed there deliberately by someone with an intimate knowledge of his clothes and the recently created hole in the bottom of his trouser pocket.

You see what happens, Dmitri, said Takemazu, red faced and ashamed once again in public, my children, my own flesh and blood turning on me. I should follow the example of Cronos and eat them both.

Could have been a mistake, Seijo.

It was no mistake. He insisted it was no mistake all the way through the terminal, across the tarmac, into his seat and through the air. Susan's name was repeated every kilometre.

-

When they arrived on set, Susan was there. Seijo's Nemesis, the poisoner of his children strolled amongst the technicians, listened to the set designers, gossiped with the lighting engineers. She looked the part, all in black, most of her clothing leather like the Far Future women wandering about waiting for their cues and the filming to stutter into life. But these women weren't the main women, they weren't the Far Future women floating about in their white flying cities, cities impaled and embedded in the towers and columns of the Dark Ages and Enlightenment towns. No, these were Susan's lot, the shadowy lot, the Far Future women who had hybridised with Dark Age warriors from previous Quarter Moon events and evolved into a terrifying portent of mystic threat that had the ignorant of the Gothic period shivering in their cassocks.

Have you seen this, Susan's eyes couldn't open wide enough to take it all in. I want to live in a future like this.

Everything's green, said Neved. Takemazu stood with his back to them both.

I don't mean the green screens, I mean the outfits, the uniforms. Do you know who these characters are?

Yes, I do. We've been working with the rushes for a year.

Does he know? She sneered at Takemazu's shoulders.

Not yet.

In the right setting and with eyes closed it was possible to imagine Jens Gol as God. His voice travelled. He could have been in Eindhoven, but his instruction, even casual conversation, flew overhead and buffeted around taller people. He approached Takemazu who winced when Gol said hello and almost shook his arm off.

Now you will experience first hand two worlds. No, correct that, Gol shouted, five worlds, is that right, Susan?

I've no idea what you mean.

The real world of the film set, the make believe world created by the film set and the three worlds contained within the Quarter Moon narrative. And by the way, Susan, sorry to hear about London.

What's wrong with London? Susan raised her voice before realising there was need to shout back.

This morning, the police were using batons and pepper spray to move the crowds on from the house with the bodies.

Bodies? Oh, the bodies. Right. Well, you can't blame them. If the crowd gets its hands on those bodies who knows what they'll do with them.

The horrible consequences - a non-starter anyway because the bodies were in a secret morgue somewhere - were of no interest to Gol whose main concern was ramming the film making process down Takemazu's throat without choking him. The man was clearly accident prone.

The four of them toured the set and Gol blared out dense blocks of textual information and cinematic background, of inherent menace, of opportunity necrotised, of Enlightenment made ignorant by the overwhelming brute force of time's tyranny. Takemazu nodded and silently agreed and took it all in, but his eyelids batted every time Gol spoke. Neved had questions about the opacity of Gol's take on what was a fairly basic science fiction premise: the anomalies thrown up by time travel.

No, it's not just a simple case of time travel, Gol howled. Time travel is merely a vehicle to investigate other issues, in particular the unsettling consequences of divergent communities forced to live with each other.

With unbearable insistence and attention to detail Gol outlined the Enlightenment's fascination with a scientific mystery that challenged existence and the very nature of reality, he explained how the ecclesiastics of the Dark Ages compared the pure Far Future women to be angels and their black clothed contemporaries to be demons. Living proof, the proof they've been searching for, of the existence of Heaven and Hell.

How ironic, said Susan. She was ignored. She didn't like being ignored, but the isolation gave her a chance to consider these blackened Far Future figures. They inspired, they had an image she could adopt, adapt, make her own and the soundtrack was a legitimate means of taking on the persona of one of these incredible figures. The only inconsistency was the guitar. Far Future women would not play a Gibson Flying V.

The group stopped at the base of a castle. Up close the stonework revealed