The Crooked Little Pieces: Volume 3

By Sophia Lambton

Dreams are a red flag for the danger-prone.

Postwar van der Holts. Sophistication sticks to Head of Music Isabel – and so does new headmaster, the mysterious and semi-dictatorial Richard Schneider. Dissent from doctorly conventionality leads Anneliese into digressions deviant even for her as she squares off not just against Susanna but a serial offender of the law. Sparks fly between old flames; new fears prove equally exciting. Loyalties are switched and cravings itched in this compendium of the forbidden driven by foreboding: a mere taste of the temptations still to come.

Treats are aplenty for the reader who prefers vicarious living in The Crooked Little Pieces: Volume 3: a world of thorny territory and the traps of passion’s shackles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sophia Lambton
• Release date: Jun 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739722784

Sophia Lambton

Sophia Lambton became a professional classical music critic at the age of seventeen when she began writing for Musical Opinion, Britain's oldest music magazine. Since then she has contributed to The Guardian, Bachtrack, musicOMH, BroadwayWorld, BBC Music Magazine and OperaWire, and conducted operatic research around the world for a non-fiction work set to be published in 2023.Crepuscular Musings - her recently spawned cultural Substack - provides vivid explorations of tv and cinema together with reviews of operas, concerts and recitals at sophialambton.substack.com.The Crooked Little Pieces is her first literary saga. Currently she's working on her second.She lives in London.

Book preview

The Crooked Little Pieces

Volume III

Sophia Lambton

The Crooked Little Pieces

Volume III

A Novel

THE CREPUSCULAR PRESS

London

First published in Great Britain by The Crepuscular Press 2023

Copyright 2023 © Sophia Lambton

The book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Jacket design by Matthew Wood

Digital enhancements by Renée Clarke

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Set in 10/15pt Constantia

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, www.refinecatch.com

Printed and bound by Clays Ltd., Elcograf S.p.A.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-7392863-0-9

ISBN 978-1-7392863-3-0 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-7397227-8-4 (ebook)

All Rights Reserved

www.thecrepuscularpress.com

The following works are here partially reprinted with permission from their copyright holders:

IT’S DE-LOVELY (from Red, Hot & Blue)

Words and Music by COLE PORTER

© CHAPPELL & CO., INC.

Copyright Renewed and Assigned to JOHN F. WHARTON, Trustee of the COLE PORTER MUSICAL & LITERARY PROPERTY TRUSTS

Publication and Allied Rights Assigned to CHAPPELL & CO., INC.

All Rights Reserved

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Words and Music by HUGH MARTIN and RALPH BLANE

© 1943 (Renewed) METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER INC.

© 1944 (Renewed) EMI FEIST CATALOG INC.

List of Contents

1. Black cherry tea

2. The house of the incubus

3. Dismantling the Weimar Republic

4. Campfire scintillas

5. Strained muscle

6. Ethnic Variation in Victims of Street Assault

7. Splitting the spoon

8. Mnemonics

9. A Trojan Horse Backfired

10. Flaming rings

11. Cellist fingers

12. Snitch’s proxy

13. Failed ambushes

14. A blasted kite

15. The other red carpet

16. The tickling quill

17. A toast

18. Static electricity

19. Foiled publicity

20. Dough

21. The drowned-out butterfly

22. Hedgehog spines

23. Breaking the ice

24. Sugar loses sweetness

25. Clichés compared

26. Lightning Days

27. Stoking the fire

28. The candlewax well

29. A garden hose unleashed

30. Unwanted entanglements

31. Heliotropia/Moonstone

32. Petals of an Eden rose

33. Sancai

34. The fan club

35. The second Helen of Troy

36. Blurred fingerprints

37. Disenablement

38. Another bell toll

39. Cosmetic foliage

40. Embolismic destiny

41. Half-sin

42. The rations cycle

43. A melted path

44. The end of the big sleep

45. The brook of the white and black swans

46. Alchemy

47. Aromatic bullseye

48. Honeybees

49. The background wreath

50. The patrol process

51. Impure alloy

52. Starting the bidding

53. The chesspiece gains consciousness

1.

Black cherry tea

The bullets toppled out at an uneven pace: one pop, a double tumble – then a string of them that echoed the cascade of rolling tins over the ground – and then a pause. A few clicks filled the interval: the shooter had to re-equip the magazine with cartridges. His task complete, the bullets re-emerged in a disgorging outpour; alternately loud and soft like an accumulating cough. One bounced on the floor, a couple more dispersed in opposite directions.

There followed a long pause. What marksman would reload a gun after three shots?

She would have thought he never had depleted ammunition.

Anneliese blinked several times to force her eyes open. The timbre of the shots achieved a greater clarity: a humming record player growing palpable with the unsealing of a door. Little bursts were squeezed out with new cleanliness.

These were not the lines of fire. They were noises being forged by Isabel whilst rummaging amidst her high heels in the closet. She was hurtling the unwanted ones across the ground.

Anneliese flung her feet onto the floor and fastened them into her slippers. She leant over to collect a bathrobe bundled on a chair and made soft steps towards the guest room. From some feet away her ears began to clasp a little whirring sound accompanied by some metallic-sounding female voice: ‘Night and Day’ was being broadcast on the radio – and punctuated intermittently by vulgar interspersions of shoes waging war.

She pushed the door open. Isabel was sitting on the floor already dressed in a print rayon dress of grey and turquoise squares; its a skirt popped up from the ground like an erect umbrella. A buttoned black bolero sat atop her shoulders.

The heels of her hands helped her rock back and forth as she looked at her sister.

‘Am I out of season?’

Anneliese scanned her from head to toe and back again.

‘You mean, because of the black jacket?’

‘Yeah.’

‘No.’ An oppressive beam of electricity struck Anneliese’s eye. ‘Why is the light on?’

‘The bulb in the closet burned out and I didn’t know where your spares were.’

‘You’ve never replaced a lightbulb.’

‘Also, that could have had something to do with it, yes.’

Isabel peeled herself off the ground and brushed lint off her skirt.

‘It’s not even the first day.’ Anneliese insisted.

‘Yeah, I know.’ Isabel was amiss. She reentered the closet and resumed her procedure of flinging unwearable shoes.

‘I didn’t realise you’d brought so much with you.’

‘Oh – most of it is stuff from back when – most of it I had here after Amelita died and then around half I brought now – came – now. Yes, well—’

‘Black Mary Janes would do.’

Isabel shook her head violently.

‘Nah-uh. That’s – no.’

‘I’m quite sure you’ve worn Mary Janes to school be—’

‘To school. Yes, to school; this isn’t school; this is an interview.’

Anneliese stifled laughter.

‘This isn’t an interview.’

‘It is.’

‘It’s hilarious how a new headmaster prompts you to imagine you’re an MP and the other party’s just been elected.’

‘Liesa, it’s …’ Isabel peered on the ground and inhaled mournfully. ‘They’re at home.’

‘Who’s at home?’

‘My court shoes.’

‘Besides the strap, what is the difference between your black Mary Janes and your court shoes?’

Her voice caught on her breath.

‘Everything. I wear the Mary Janes – I may as well have a dress with a Peter Pan collar.’

Anneliese leant her chin on her hand.

‘Oh – this is because it’s a man?’

‘It’s a man I’ll have to work with for the next … God knows how many years.’

Anneliese twirled her left hand to calibrate:

‘All of this … because it is a man?’

Isabel picked up a royal blue shoe.

‘Turquoise versus blue? That’s off, right? I mean … blue and turquoise … I need grey. But grey is such a grandma’s colour …’ Isabel popped up again and kicked around some red and orange specimens. She studied blocks of black and grey.

Anneliese eyed her with poorly hidden amusement. Isabel caught the gist.

‘You think I enjoy this? I’d rather go to see the new Bogart-Bacall film but it isn’t out yet.’ She dropped another shoe onto the floor. ‘I’d rather be Lauren Bacall.’

‘The maroon ones aren’t bad.’ Anneliese murmured surreptitiously.

‘What?’ it came out so breathily one would have thought an air raid siren had just blasted.

‘These ones.’ Anneliese prodded them with her foot. ‘Maroon and grey and turquoise and black – that’s all right. For you. I’d never … But for you.’

Isabel picked them up.

‘They’re better than the Mary Janes.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

Sixteen minutes later Anneliese was drinking coffee in the kitchen when she heard a clan of syncopated jazz beats stomping on her stairs.

Isabel switched on the light, sat before her and poured herself coffee. With fingers interlocked she stared ahead.

‘Isabel.’

She woke herself up.

‘Hmm?’

‘I’m sure it’s, er … an exaggeration on your part.’

‘The whole idea that he has come to turn my school into a military academy?’

‘Something like that.’

‘That’s not it.’

‘What else is it?’

‘Somehow I can’t …’ She rubbed one hand with the other. ‘Conjoin the two concepts.’

‘What concepts?’

‘I mean, I’ve always come to work looking attractive. But it’s a girls’ school. If I worked in an office with mostly male company, then …’ Her hands slid through the air.

‘Yes.’ Anneliese nodded.

‘So now that – I mean, when we were in Lower Fourth there were days when I came to school with dirty hair and nobody of male anatomy but Mr Humble saw me with it and … that’s Mr Humble. Why would I care? Of course – nowadays I’d never step outside with dirty hair. But – when the headmaster … the headmaster who peers down from the podium to have a bird’s eye view of all of us every assembly … When the headmaster is a man, then …’ She slapped her hands onto her thighs. ‘What do you do?’

Anneliese stared at her not very politely.

‘Maybe – give me this hand-me-down? I’d happily swap problems.’

‘Do you realise how repellent this is to prospective parents? A man who walks past the netball court. Sees all those short, pleated P.E. skirts. A man who can have access to the changing room and the girls’ toilets should he want to. What does that … who wants to give their daughter to that school? He isn’t ninety. He’s not a barely mobile grandpa. Suppose they start rolling up their skirts ‘cause they find him attractive?’

Anneliese raised her mug to her mouth.

‘They already do that without any stimulus.’

‘Wearing make-up—’

‘And they do that.’

‘Not all of them. The innocents … corrupted.’

‘Could he have corrupted me?’

‘Liesa – no one could corrupt you.’

Would that she had known.

‘I know it’s not a suicidal patient but … it is a spanner in the works. For me. Miss Hampshire. Georgia, Margaret Jones, the other Margaret Jones …’ She shut one eye to recall something. ‘For Margaret Smith. Margot still has troubling speaking English.’

Anneliese omitted most of Isabel’s oration from her brain.

‘I don’t have a suicidal patient that I know of.’

‘Why are you diminishing my problem?’

‘Because I’d – really like to have it.’

Isabel laid her icy left hand over Anneliese’s fluffy dressing gown sleeve.

‘Liesa …’ She unleashed a heavy breath. ‘Every time there is the introduction of a man into my life, something goes wrong.’

Anneliese slouched back into her chair.

‘That’s your decision, Isabel.’

‘They come to me; they know me. Intrinsically they know I have this … predilection. They know …’ she whispered. ‘That if I could just dispense with all of the morality and etiquette that clogs up my head …’ She breathed out noisily. ‘Not good things would occur.’

Anneliese looked awkwardly into her coffee. In some perverse regard it still delighted her that Isabel was complex-ridden.

‘You don’t have to let them know.’

‘All right. I understand.’ But she was looking out of the window as though she did not.

‘But, er …’ Anneliese cleared her throat. ‘Even though he’s unmarried – if he’s very religious, or even just … highly traditional … you have nothing to worry about.’

This had not occurred to Isabel. All of a sudden she recalled the moment as a little child when she had spent too long face-down along the shallows of Lake Zurich. She had begun to get accustomed to the blindness and the strange, tunnel-like noise when Anneliese had pulled her out again and she had looked up to observe the sunlight sprinkling healthy doses on her scalp.

She leant back in surprise.

‘My God. That’s – you have a point.’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘Miss Butterworth told me she babysat him when his mother would go to the synagogue.’

‘That’s—’

The kitchen door popped open to the outpour of her husband’s groan.

‘Why is the light on?’ Stephen roared.

‘We’re already on the wrong side of the solstice.’ Anneliese explained.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s August.’

A smirking Isabel sipped coffee, using swirls of steam to inhale calm and clear her nose. Stephen turned the light off, lingered on the threshold, surveyed the kitchen, hissed ‘Damn it!’ and returned upstairs.

‘How do you sleep with him?’ asked Isabel.

‘Well …’ Anneliese dipped her spoon into her cornflakes. ‘It really doesn’t play a major role.’

‘Afforded much less status than the majordomo of a household.’

Anneliese let out a whimper.

‘Mmm.’

She arrived at Croham Hurst at quarter to ten to request the new list of first-years and her autumn term schedule from Molly. Sat in her office for three hours, Isabel spent two thirds of the time learning their names and the last portion matching times of choir practices with students’ schedules.

Seven clubs were lacking slots: Senior Choir would take place on Tuesday nights, Junior on Mondays; Junior Chamber Choir in the morning slot that pupils hated – 7.45. Miss Butterworth had told her Mr Schneider would teach history but that his master’s – recently obtained at Cambridge – was in economics. As though that information served to neutralise the sour taste that glazed her throat. His weekly History Society had already annexed the sole lunch hour that Isabel reserved for Senior Chamber Choir: Wednesday’s.

That unexpected clash forecast another.

At the scheduled time of their appointment she turned up outside his office, standing face to face with the new plaque across the door: etched letters Isabel determined were excessively compressed.

Then she recalled his predecessor’s name had been ‘Miss Carolyn S. Butterworth’.

Molly called her in a timid whisper:

‘Miss van der Holt?’

‘Yes?’

‘Mr Schneider has requested that the staff not knock; he’ll call you when he’s ready.’

Dawdling on the spot, she swayed her skirt around.

‘Very well.’

Impatiently she tapped her foot. Her schedule rustled in her hand. Attentively she gazed at the long handle on her watch. He was running fifteen minutes late.

She walked around the corridor with her arms folded; that same corridor where she and Anneliese had waited just before the interviews in which Miss Butterworth had taken them under her wing. The creak of its floorboards exuded a pacification. There had been a war, the school had been evacuated. Yet Isabel remained at loss to fathom how this wallpaper – sallow and well past spinsterhood, and that old navy carpet with its corners perking up like Piglet’s ears, and the school photograph from 1898 that hung outside the office – could be annihilated by some ambush. Even Hitler’s ambush.

Ten more minutes followed emptily; fifteen were their successor. Molly Clatwell had by now traversed the corridor nine or ten times: those creaks were starting to be cumbersome. As Isabel tried hard to smooth the corner of the carpet with the tip of her high heel it curled up in defiance. Would nobody secure it with Scotch tape? The girls in the school photo were off-putting. In the extremely patchy resolution of the print one with a fluffy chevelure looked unmistakably as though she had a stomach ache and hated posing.

Her watch approached twenty to six. Isabel haplessly wandered around.

Eventually she took steps to the secretary’s office.

‘Molly?’

‘Yes, Miss van der Holt?’

‘He should have received me an hour ago.’

Molly looked down at her schedule.

‘Why, yes – you’re right! You’re quite right!’

She should have waited for her knock: Molly was Mr Schneider’s secretary now. She should have been that patient. Instead Isabel knocked on the door and, loath to await a response, creaked it opened herself.

Mr Schneider sat listening to the wireless, his chin sat on his hand. Whatever they were murmuring – something about United Nations, a ‘Jewish State’, Palestine and the General Assembly – made him unduly serious. ‘Unduly’ in the eyes of Isabel. It must have been if he had missed their meeting on account of it.

Probably she shouldn’t have employed her full voice. But the radio was so subdued she sought to protest its demeanour.

‘Mr Schneider.’

He looked up and frowned somewhat but otherwise remained expressionless. Miss Butterworth had told her he was nearing forty. Though wrinkles still eluded him his mien already evoked middle age.

The fellow was a not-so-neatly groomed dark man with downy raven hair and needle-like, erect blades coating his uncleanly shaven chin. Rising stubble was resisting the development of moustache.

Barely moving, he responded tentatively:

‘Miss van der Holt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your appointment was for quarter to twelve.’

Isabel scowled. She forgot entirely the care she had applied to choose her outfit; measures she had implemented to ensure that it was feminine but not seductive; warm and yet exempt from a particular allure …

‘My appointment was for quarter to five.’

He frowned. But he was not surprised.

‘Do you have the letter you received from Miss Clatwell?’

‘No, I …’ She almost laughed. ‘I trust you … would believe me.’

Gradually, most gradually, he nodded.

‘Right.’ A bell sat on the table. Mr Schneider picked it up and rang. Molly scurried to the room. ‘Miss Clatwell, did you discard the old schedule?’

‘What old schedule?’ She blinked several times to clarify the situation. ‘Oh, you mean – you mean the old list of appointments?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh – oh!!’ Her hands covered her mouth instantly. ‘You know, Mr Schneider, I may have made some mistakes—’

‘That’s quite all right. Miss van der Holt,’ he stood up, ‘I’m very sorry for the error; there were two drafts of today’s schedule and, it appears, certain names became confused.’

But what of others’ names? Why had Isabel’s been the sole one to change appointments between just two drafts?

‘Weren’t you a little baffled when no one arrived at a quarter to twelve?’

He stuck his hand into his pocket.

‘I … had been informed, by Miss Butterworth, that there was a possibility you might be on holiday.’

Her eyes switched from left to right.

‘Why didn’t you … I mean … You had my telephone number … Both of them.’

Mr Schneider’s eyes wandered a lot: rising, falling, making quick diagonal slopes like mountain skiers. They didn’t care to change expression but imbued the shiny colour of a beverage she had once imbibed sat in the kitchen of her old piano teacher Madame Rakovskaya: Russian tea infused with dollops of black cherry jam. A lightbulb swaying on the ceiling had regaled it with a coat of scintillating lustre; bouncing its reflection on the sphere atremble in burnt scarlet liquid.

His lips were lifted fractionally but missed out on a smile.

‘It didn’t occur to me.’ He outstretched his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

She shook it. The process was performed as quickly as an influenza vaccination.

‘Please, sit.’

She smoothed her hand over the back of her skirt before taking her seat. Mr Schneider turned to Molly once again.

‘Miss Clatwell, would you ask Miss van der Holt—’

‘The usual, Molly.’ Isabel interrupted.

Summer holidays had made Miss Clatwell’s senses as unusable as the flat rubber tip atop a shrivelled pencil.

Defiance bolstered Isabel to clarify:

‘Very weak and four sugars.’

Molly nodded excitedly.

‘Very good, Miss van der Holt; very good.’

Scrutinizing the once-haunt of the long-missed Miss Butterworth, she found that much had changed. The lighting had been altered. Mr Schneider had a large red standing lamp that lent the room the golden hue of syrup.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’ he once again apologised.

‘That’s all right.’ But her answer was vacuous.

Molly brought the tea and set it on the table.

‘Thank you, Miss Clatwell. You may go home now.’

Molly slapped her hands onto her thighs.

‘Why, thank you, Mr Schneider; I think I may just do that. Have a good evening, sir.’

‘Good evening, Miss Clatwell.’

Mr Schneider had elected not to take tea. So he watched Isabel taking a sip, scalding her tongue, sucking its tip in her mouth. Dark shadows drooped beneath his eyes.

He interlocked his hands and spoke with an impermeable tranquillity.

‘Did you know …’ He shut his mouth and opened it again. ‘That since you began working here the school’s electricity use has gone up by eleven per cent?’

She failed to understand. It wasn’t an admonishment. She didn’t have to line up all her troops with spears. At least – she didn’t think she ought to.

So she buried her nose in the cup and compared its brown dusk with the darker, more sinister shade of his eyes.

‘Would you prefer I be … more …’ She shrugged. ‘Frugal?’

He ran a pencil through his second and third fingers.

‘I would just … like to know … How does one … go about … I mean, I understand, very well, that a head of music needs to make use of the record player. And of course, there are, to my knowledge … six music groups?’

‘Seven ensembles.’

‘And yet … How that could accumulate to a rise of eleven per cent …’ And again he tapped his pencil. ‘Remains outside the limits of my understanding.’

Skidding through these words his voice was barely furnished with a body. Prickly raspiness across it radiated an insidiously lulling calm. The noise that Mr Schneider made was several dozen decibels below her own. His instrument hissed like a rusty radiator in a poorly maintained manor.

Isabel put down her cup.

‘I tend to work overtime. In order to save money on the budget, I have a habit of manually copying out extra choir sheet music for the girls. We always lose some copies, and … Well – I never know how much I’ll have to work. Between marking and contacting music suppliers and organising concert programs and counting the funds we raised after the concerts … Sometimes I stay till two or three. AM.’

This didn’t open his eyes. They were still narrowed, incisive and trenchant. Still they wandered. And it seemed he didn’t always know exactly where to put them down: a senior lady with a pair of spectacles suspended from her lanyard struggling to decide where best to leave them.

‘Is this work you can’t do at home?’

‘I prefer to keep the choir music here so I don’t have to lug it back and forth and misplace half of it and then confuse the pages.’ Isabel explained assertively. She mulled the problem over in her head. ‘I can use candles.’

‘Candles are prohibited in every area of the school.’

Isabel remembered the Christmas celebration she had thrown for the girls.

‘We—’

Then she opted to avoid disclosing this. Mr Schneider studied her and managed to foretell the words unspoken:

‘Then there’s the growing gas bill. You could wear cardigans; bring blankets.’

Sartorial counsel only riled her.

‘And if I don’t?’

‘If you don’t … I have considered … not just on account of this but …’ He scratched his stubble. ‘Taking other factors into my consideration … imposing a curfew.’

‘What – like in wartime? Lights out?’

‘And confiscating the keys that you have to the music building.’

‘Every head of music this school ever had has had a copy of the keys.’

‘Yes, I …’ He studied the notes on his table. ‘I gleaned this information.’ He sucked on his lip. ‘Miss van der Holt …’ He scoffed with a withheld causticity. ‘The budget for your music department is twice the amount Mr Humble receives for the classics one.’

‘Does he have to buy instruments, music stands and scores?’

‘It’s understandable, but …’ He raised his left hand. ‘Four concerts a year?’

‘Yes. But you’re including the Carol Concert and Founders’ Day – I’m not sure they should count. They’re indispensable traditions.’

‘I’ve never attended a concert or … performance of any kind at Croham Hurst, Miss van der Holt. But, er …’ He waved his hand. ‘In my experience at previous schools, the objective of choir concerts has often been to give a high-ranking member of staff a soapbox: a rostrum of some kind from which magnanimous donations from the parents are solicited, or … Some new concept surfaces … A new theatre or gymnasium or science laboratory that could excite parents enough to produce contributions … even costlier than the exorbitant fees. All of this, in my mind …’ He bowed his head. ‘Reeks of pomp and fanfare.’

Isabel blinked.

‘Yes.’ She raised her voice. ‘I know. I’ve attended Aylesbury’s concerts.’

‘Here … no one makes speeches at these events, do they?’

‘Bible readings at the Carol Concert.’

‘But … It says here that …’ He reached behind to take a document and deal it an inspection. ‘Half the money made goes to charity; the other half goes to the music department.’

‘Yes.’

Mr Schneider set the paper down to let his thumb and forefinger ungainly fumble each other.

‘Do you have people stood with buckets ready to collect?’

‘No; we’re not the Proms.’

‘So … no long diatribes about how … you would like to take the girls on a trip to New York?’

Miss Butterworth had told him.

‘There were never any diatribes.’

‘But you … have expressed an ambition … to take the choir to New York?’

‘To take the choirs to New York. Yes, I have. But not publicly. I’ve told Miss Butterworth. From time to time I mentioned something in passing to the girls—’

‘Raising false hopes.’

‘In the right circumstances, if I saved well—’

‘In the right circumstances you would heed a little more attention to the monies spent on needless entities.’

Isabel restrained a heavy sigh.

‘Which works do you have the girls perform at these events?’ enquired Mr Schneider.

‘Must they be screened for threats like letters sent to the Prime Minister?’

‘No.’ He was clearly sucking on his inner lip again. ‘I would just like to know.’

‘Owing to schedule restrictions, we never assume anything … overly ambitious. So there’ll be no Requiem by Mozart, Brahms or Verdi … Our choirs, even in unison, aren’t the kind of size to—’

‘I understand. Carry on.’

‘So I’ve been looking into Verdi’s Quattro Pezzi Sacri. And, er … I might be – I might be starting work on a soprano-alto arrangement of Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody.’

This one caught him off guard.

‘Really?’

‘You know it?’

‘I sang it in choir once.’

‘Yes.’ she said meaninglessly. ‘Spring Concert is traditionally Strauss. Johann.’

‘I wouldn’t expect Richard.’ he pronounced in German.

‘And Morgenblätter is a popular favourite to finish it off, because it’s …’

‘A sherry trifle.’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s your choir schedule like this year?’

Here arrived her moment.

‘I’m sorry to say that … you’ve taken my spot.’

‘Have I?’

‘Wednesday lunchtimes have always been Senior Chamber Choir.’

He leant his head into his hand, impaling it with his chin’s mould. Studying another piece of paper on the table, Mr Schneider muttered:

‘Friday lunchtimes look good.’

‘Not for me. That’s my full day; I have no free periods. And customarily I use the Friday lunchtimes for help sessions; mostly for Sixth Formers but also for some younger girls. Wednesday’s a nullity for me; I’ve got two double periods with the Upper Thirds and that’s it.’

He picked up his binder and leafed through to the end.

‘So you have.’

‘Could we swap?’

‘Fine.’

‘Really?’

Mr Schneider took a pen, crossed something out, replaced it with another phrase, crossed something else out on the paper’s other end and reset both along the desk.

‘I’ll alert Miss Clatwell the next time I see her.’

Isabel nodded.

‘Thank you.’

She looked at the clock. Almost a whole half-hour had gone by and she distinctly recollected each appointment was to last just fifteen minutes.

‘Er …’ She uncrossed her legs. ‘Will that be all?’

‘Just …’ Again he tapped the pencil. ‘A word of caution. I have … I have heard it said that you … Can be a little lenient … sometimes.’

‘ Lenient? ’

‘You grant the girls … perhaps more liberties than they know what to do with.’

‘This is … dangerous?’

‘It isn’t very seemly. Most of all, it lends them an uncomfortable perspective as regards your status. We don’t want them to feel … as though an authority figure is lacking.’

Isabel imagined he foresaw a coup d’état.

‘And … in your view, this is not good … on the principle that if you grant them excess freedom … all they’ll do is run amok like India and Pakistan?’

He faintly smiled.

‘Along those lines, yes.’

‘The difference is they never feel secluded. And their harmony’s ebullient.’

‘I’m happy to hear it. All I ask is that you keep discerning tabs on when the homework’s handed in, who’s late and how often. I’m at loss to understand how you reported not one incidence of lateness during all of summer term.’

She shrugged.

‘It happens.’

‘From the recollections of Miss Butterworth, you yourself were once late. As a pupil.’

‘I’ve since realised the error of my ways.’

‘Very well.’ He rose. Isabel followed suit. He rubbed his chin again. ‘I have no plans to tweak anything in the music department …’ he insisted. ‘You have the most popular, most aesthetically pleasing building, a locally renowned choir and more acceptances to the Royal College and Royal Academy than there were at my last school.’

‘We have four choirs.’

‘I’m just trying to lessen your voltage.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The lighting. Your office is adjacent to the Music Room so you don’t need to have the lights on while you work.’

Isabel averted her gaze as she deferred.

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Good. Do you have any questions?’

She wasn’t going to. But since he’d brought it up:

‘Erm … I thought it precautionary to ask … The concerts usually take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I’m imagining you’d rather they not occur on Friday nights.’

His expression was unchanged.

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ Isabel raised her hand to scratch the bottom of her neck – and then evaded it. ‘Because Miss Butterworth told me she babysat for you when your mother would go to the synagogue.’

‘Oh – no. No, no. In assembly I’ll stick to the Old Testament; the school will still be guided by a Christian ethos.’

‘You don’t want anyone to know you’re Jewish?’

He very lightly snickered.

‘Do you think there’s any chance they won’t?’

‘Are you practising?’

‘Are you still married?’

She clenched her hand into a fist and then relieved it of its tension.

‘How did you know—’

‘Forgive me, ah …’ He gazed at the ground. ‘Miss Butterworth thought it wise to tell me you were separated in case – questions were asked.’

‘And if they are?’

‘You don’t have any husband I’m aware of.’

She nodded in cordiality. It struck her he was two and a half inches her superior in height.

‘Thank you.’ She headed to the door.

Briefly she considered wishing him good evening – and then chose against it. Exiting, she watched him once again in order to discern a feeling. Any feeling.

Hours of exposure to the RCM old boys’ network had pedagogically enabled her to read men’s psyches through a microscopic lens: Nostradamus hadn’t been so good a mind-reader.

Isabel could not just tell if she was wanted. She could unpick for what tastes she was wanted. At the end of every social evening she would lay out at the forefront of her mind all the male specimens to which she had been introduced. And she’d begin discriminating: splaying them out mentally like a small glutton splitting pick ‘n’ mix sweets in his bag.

And where the child would put the apple drops aside, shift gummi bears a fraction to the right, set jelly beans midway and move the caramels northeast, Isabel would drop these men into her own slots. There were those like Steven she could tell desired her because they saw she liked it rough; the sweeter ones who would have never gone beyond a colour-lacking missionary spell; experimenters who were likely game for anything and finally those sullen, inexperienced seedlings stirring pity.

Then there were those whose liking she eluded. They were easiest to read of all.

If she possessed a faculty that could outweigh her musical performance, it was this.

And now it functioned like a thunder-stricken phone tower.

A final glance and nod of goodbye reinforced for her the quandary. His expression was a gated property – not even barred gates, lattice ones: the kind through which a most resourceful tourist couldn’t take a photograph.

Two hours later Anneliese opened the door before her sister could get out her key.

‘Was it all right?’

‘I thought you had a patient until six o’clock.’ Isabel entered, flinging her handbag on a stool in the kitchen.

‘It wasn’t good? You don’t think he’s right for the school?’

She scratched hair buried under her clips.

‘No, he’s … I mean …’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not a governor; I don’t know school politics. I could never be a headmistress.’ Isabel blinked to herself several times. ‘He’s fine.’

‘Really?’

‘He’s fine.’

Her succinctness was remarkably suspicious. Putting the kettle on the stove, Isabel felt she had dashed off a response far too English in character. It was simply a question she didn’t know how to answer.

2.

The house of the incubus

Her alarm clock rang without a sound. Anneliese’s reflex was to slam the button down with the now-shaking flat of her left hand. Popping like a squirrel in a screechy attic clawing to escape, it banged relentlessly in a compulsive rhythm.

The ticker by her bedside was a silent bystander – inside her was the hammering machine. Three seconds into this begrudging ordeal she was clasped by that day’s first wave of lucidity. There was no tall and looming figure at the threshold of her door; it wasn’t even dark. Through the fuzzy sheen of her lens-free examination of the clock she learnt that ninety minutes still remained until its beckoning.

Her menacing oppressor was the first thing she dispensed with. Through the pollen-choked and airless summer Stephen had insisted that they keep the same old winter duvet despite Anneliese’s daily implorations. So every morning before car horns or the smell of coffee or a sour taste inside her mouth the first awareness of her senses came through a rank moisture that had glued her nightdress to her chest and soaked the blanket.

Except today – when the obnoxious knock of her crude psyche had outfoxed the noxious perspiration.

The nightmares swept over her sleep in droves. With every delve into unconsciousness – if only for two hours – a familiar image shimmered in her hazy mind like her reflection in a shiny lift: in a dark room Anneliese would be frenetically rummaging beside a desk; her hands rustling and tossing papers with a crazed kineticism. The only light illuminating their performance glowed through the thin aperture between the room’s door and its threshold. Just as her fingers warmed, just as her breathing slowed, just as her trembling digits clasped hold of the document she needed – every time the shadow of a man would surface.

Infallibly the text’s exposure to her eyes would be eclipsed by his obstruction of the light, and she would throw the papers down before suspicion leaked his way, and a sharp ring would pierce her ears and she would rouse.

Virulent hatred had briefly subsided to make room for fear. Thus Anneliese had parted with a dear, beloved lodger: namely, the relentless venom that she harboured towards C.A. Remington. He was the handler of Susanna’s fate; an incubus who might have single-handedly dismantled hundreds of existences and the corrupted lawyer ready to contort proceedings in the trial of Lily’s murderer – if he could not suppress new evidence before the jury was impanelled.

Her fingers prodded buttons on the telephone even before she thought to hop into the shower and invite the deluge to unstick her sweat. Together with a band of hunger growls inflating dread now held her stomach hostage.

The voice at the receiving end was nothing but alert and formal.

‘HAMP 3-4-5-1 – speaking.’

She was so breathless that she reddened and her hand brushed past her cheek.

‘Daleham Gardens?’

‘That’s right, Anneliese.’

It was a soothing manner loath to shed her panic.

‘I still insist there’s something wrong about this.’

‘Well …’ She heard him exhale heavily into the phone. ‘It’s up to you.’

‘No, I meant the address. He has to live in Primrose Hill or Kensington or Marylebone or else we must look at the map again to find another Daleham Gardens.’

‘There isn’t one.’ claimed Benjamin.

Anneliese released a ring of air.

‘Did you know that there’s a road in Uxbridge called Daleham Drive?’

‘The Remingtons don’t live in Uxbridge, Anneliese. They live in Hampstead. Like you.’

So much for a common denominator.

‘Well … very well, very well – I’ll – I’ll meet you outside at nine.’

Nine was in no hurry to arrive. In the time remaining Anneliese performed every task possible to scrape her nerves. She spent an hour in the shower; half of one deciding on a suit. She buttered three slices of bread – all of which went uneaten. She even telephoned her mother to make sure she was alive and strived hard to replace the panic in her with Elise’s trenchant wails and retributions. None of it prevailed.

Why she had opted for a boring woollen suit the shade of tree bark still remained beyond her understanding. Perhaps it complimented autumn leaves. Perhaps the header of the day’s agenda was dictating in capital letters: ‘PLEASE – BE INCONSPICUOUS.’

As Benjamin stood waiting at her front gate, watching as she locked her door, he neglected to remark on her appearance for the first time since their meeting.

‘Shall we?’ were the only words that toppled from his mouth.

Rings of icy wind enveloped the back of her knees in a spiral. She opened up to say ‘I’m glad I wore this suit’ but then looked down and opted to refrain.

Benjamin was clutching his briefcase and some papers in his left hand.

Anneliese sounded unusually breathy.

‘Are those her files?’

‘Whose? Rosalind’s?’

She was austere and contemplative:

‘Rosalind’s …’

‘No, no, no – of course not. I was just reading some articles on the train.’

‘On childhood schizophrenia?’

‘Yes. I’ve studied many papers but they multiply each day. Frankly, I’m struggling to keep up.’

Anneliese begrudged the colour palette of her view. Across the three streets they would have to cross to reach the home of the antagonist she called ‘the incubus’ all houses were identical in hue. The sound of wind transporting leaves and litter laid on Anneliese the false sensation it was night. So murky was the sky that rows of orange-brick, flame-coloured houses punctured sooty clouds like tapers kindling the black vacuum of a church.

They turned onto the second-to-last corner.

‘Benjamin …’ Her voice shrank with each syllable.

‘Yes?’

‘How can you not feel uncomfortable about this?’

‘As far as I’m concerned, I’m letting an old friend of mine call in a favour.’

‘Useful to know considering that you don’t owe me one. Also, I’m not sure how capitalising on the illness of a mentally unwell small girl in order to expose her scoundrel father can be termed a favour.’

‘I’m only letting you be present as a supervisor, Anneliese.’

‘You took the Hippocratic Oath just like the rest of us.’

‘I think we can come to an easy agreement.’ The clangour of her feet on drainage grates alarmed her as he spoke. ‘You won’t get involved in any of my sessions with the girl, and I won’t get involved with your … research. However, should either one of us land in hot water – well, either professionally or … in your case …’ He paused. ‘Help will always be at hand.’ He sniffed. ‘I mean – that’s simple enough.’

Her voice was even dimmer.

‘I suppose.’

As she neared the humming cars along the road his hand abruptly yanked her back onto the pavement.

‘Sorry. Force of habit – my mother did it to me when I was a child.’

Anneliese had no reaction to that.

‘What if C.A. Remington catches me?’

They turned the last corner.

‘Do you expect him to be in at ten o’clock in the morning?’

‘I don’t know … will every session be at ten?’

‘If you know he’s home, I suggest you don’t go rummaging in his possessions. Mrs Remington, however, is as affable as any charming woman could be – if not more.’

‘You’ve spoken to her on the phone.’ He nodded. ‘How is that – how is that proof of charm?’

‘The maximum penalty would be banishment from her home.’

‘No – the maximum penalty would be informing C.A. Remington about my espionage. And then I would no longer be of existential use.’

Nine more of their steps proceeded out of sync across the concrete. Then Benjamin extended his left arm in front of Anneliese’s waist – like a security guard barring her entrance.

He signalled with his head.

‘This one.’ They were stood before a building she had just mistaken for a school. ‘The only seven-bedroom house in Hampstead.’

It camouflaged among its amber-coloured neighbours but its height was indisputably discriminate. No manor or mansion, the abode was a mammoth Victorian house of red bricks that consisted of three blocks decreasing in size, each one topped by a singular lid.

The smallest tower coped with just two storeys rather than the usual three. Its overarching roof veiled the top halves of windows underneath: an infant blinded by a hat.

Benjamin murmured in her ear:

‘It’s quite a masterpiece for a family unit.’

‘Blood supplies its upkeep.’

‘Well … you never know—’

‘I know.’ Adrenalin resumed its trailblazing throughout her system. ‘I’m ready.’

Inching to the iron gate that was the fortress of the home, they solemnly approached the entrance. It was shielded by a burly guard whose height approached two metres clad in suit and tie. He stood with legs apart and hands together.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

Benjamin scratched one hand with the other nervously as Anneliese inspected a daffodil through the gate.

‘Good morning, sir – I’m Dr Benjamin Levin.’ He signalled to his left: ‘This is my colleague, Dr Anneliese van der Holt. We’re here to see Mrs Remington.’

‘Very good, sir. May I see some identification?’

Anneliese’s reflex was to tightly close her eyes.

‘Erm … well …’ Benjamin ran his hand over the outside of his pockets till his fingers dipped into the slot. ‘Would a ration book do?’

He extended the pamphlet. The guard examined it judiciously before returning it.

‘Very good, sir. Just a precaution.’

Her mind was turning out quick bolts of thoughts like reams of Nylon being fabricated in a factory. As the guard unsealed the gate a smug assumption made an imprint on her mind: he had not asked to see her papers as she was a woman.

She licked her lips as they approached the door; enjoying mulling on this thought till Benjamin began to scour for a doorbell. Finally his hand located it. A ding-dong travelled to their ears. The clopping of high heels across the floor beset their senses.

With the latch undone the door sprang open. A small Indian maid stood oval-eyed before them till another head appeared above her.

She was around three inches taller than her help. Breathily – as though she had just burnt herself by handling a hot baking tray – she stressed to the small woman eyeing her:

‘Alisha, it’s all right – I’ll take care of our guests.’

Alisha took this as a signal to escape into the corridor and disappear behind a door.

Mrs Remington extended a hand hurriedly and shook first Anneliese’s and then Benjamin’s convulsively:

‘Good morning – I am so glad you came; I was worried that the train delays would – well, the underground runs badly even when the weather’s good …’ She paused for a moment, bit her lip and looked up at the sky. ‘Well, I suppose it’s good – anyway, forgive me – do come in, both of you.’

An hourglass white and blue polka dress hugged her figure; a navy sash girded her miniature waist. Chronically she rubbed her hands together.

‘Goodness, it’s nippy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come – follow me.’

The voice was, quite expectedly for Anneliese, high-pitched and dainty – yet a little crinkled; similar to timbres she had heard in aging ladies.

The hostess’s complexion was a sandy one; a little darker than the English pallor and the opposite of Anneliese’s whiteness. Her hair was blond and thick and coiffed so that it jiggled on her shoulders. Pebbles of a coral blue made up a necklace at her collar. As Anneliese examined all the contours of her face – wide lips made lusher with bright rouge, cheeks on the other hand with just a hint of pink, a nose whose nostrils flared each time she spoke – she felt a jolt. Where she expected to behold aquatic beams she caught the hue of hazelnuts instead of seascapes.

The hands of Mrs Remington shook anxiously in spite of her. Anneliese could hear her heavy exhalations as she sped in front. On her way she caught a gander of a loose bow tie atop a marble table in the corridor. Aghast with shame, a hasty Mrs Remington absconded with it silently and turned a corner. Only when she had disposed of it did she return to face her guests.

Inside the black and white atrium teardrop-shaped wall lamps created a moonlit complexion.

Benjamin paused beside