The Surveyor whistled as he turned towards his car in the forecourt of the Quarry, his back to the rain sweeping from the mouth of the Gut.
‘They’re poor, his parents, then?’
‘As mountain snipe.’
‘Fortunately, Sergeant, you and I don’t have to concern ourselves with the justice or injustice. Only with the accurate presentation of the evidence. And I have to thank you for those drawings. They are as near professional as makes no difference. I wish all my jobs could be made as easy.’
‘I was good at figures at school,’ the Sergeant said awkwardly.
‘Why don’t you let me drive you back in the rain?’
‘There’s the bike.’
‘That’s no problem. I can dump it on the back.’
An evening suit hung in the back of the car, a scarf of white silk draped round the shoulders. On the seat lay an old violin-case.
‘You play the fiddle?’ the Sergeant noticed, glad to be in out of the rain beating on the windscreen.
‘Indeed I do. The violin travels with me everywhere. Do you have much taste for music?’
‘When I was young. At the dances. “Rakes of Mallow”. “Devil Among the Tailors”, jigs and reels.’
‘I had to choose once, when I was at university, between surveying and a career in music. I’m afraid I chose security.’
‘We all have to eat.’
‘Anyhow, I’ve never regretted it, except in the usual sentimental moments. In fact, I think if I had to depend on it for my daily bread it might lose half its magic.’
‘Is it old, the fiddle? The case looks old.’
‘Very old, but I have had it only four years. It has its story. I’m afraid it’s a longish story.’
‘I’d like to hear it.’
‘I was in Avignon in France an evening an old Italian musician was playing between the café tables, and the moment I heard its tone I knew I’d have to have it. I followed him from café to café until he’d finished for the evening, and then invited him to join me over a glass of wine. Over the wine I asked him if he’d sell. First he refused. Then I asked him to name some price he couldn’t afford not to take. I’m afraid to tell you the price, it was so high. I tried to haggle but it was no use. The last thing he wanted was to sell, but because of his family he couldn’t afford to refuse that price if I was prepared to pay it. With the money he could get proper medical treatment — I couldn’t completely follow his French — for his daughter, who was consumptive or something, and he’d do the best he could about the cafés with an ordinary violin. I’m afraid I paid up on the spot, but the experts who have examined it since say it was dead cheap at the price, that it might even be a genuine Stradivarius.’
Streets of Avignon, white walls of the royal popes in the sun, glasses of red wine and the old Italian musician playing between the café tables in the evening, a girl dying of consumption, and the sweeping rain hammering on the windscreen.
‘It was in Avignon, wasn’t it, if I have the old church history right,’ the Sergeant said slowly, ‘that those royal popes had their palaces in the schism? Some of them, by all accounts, were capable of a fandango or two besides their Hail Marys.’
‘The papal palaces are still there. Avignon is wonderful. You must go there. Some of those wonderful Joe Walsh Specials put it within all our reaches. The very sound of the name makes me long for summer.’
‘I’d love to hear you play on that fiddle.’
‘I’m sure that’s easily arranged. After all, there’s only a few more petty things to check, and then our work is done for the day.’
‘We can play in the barracks, then. There’s no one there. Biddy can get us something to eat, and then you can play.’
‘That doesn’t matter at all.’
‘Still, the inner man has to be seen to too. Biddy’s my housekeeper. She’s a good soul, but I must warn you she’s deaf as a post and shouts.’
‘Let that be the least of our worries.’ The young Surveyor smiled indulgently as the car ground to a stop on the barracks’ gravel. ‘Do you find time hard to kill in this place?’ he asked as he got out of the car.
‘It’s no fun in this weather but in the summer it’s fine,’ the Sergeant answered while they unroped the bicycle. ‘I take out the old boat you see upside down there under the sycamore. Row it up into the mouth of the Gut and drop the radiator over the side. Time runs like lightning then, feeling the boat sway in the current, a few sandwiches and stout or a little whiskey, and unless there’s a bad east wind you’re always sure of fish. It’s great to feel the first chuck and see the line cut for the lake.’
‘You grill these fish, then?’
‘Sometimes Biddy cooks them but mostly I give them away. I don’t care about the eating. It’s the day in the good weather, and the fishing. I’ve often noticed that the people mad about fishing hardly ever care about the eating.’
Biddy was turning the handle of the metal sock-machine clamped to the corner of the table when they came into the big kitchen. Its needles clacked. The half-knit sock, weighted with small pieces of lead, hung close to the cement. She didn’t turn around. When the Sergeant placed a hand on her shoulder she did not start. She began to shout something to him. Then she saw the Surveyor with the violin-case in his hand at the door, and drew back.
‘This is Biddy. She knits socks for half the countryside. More to pass the time than for the few pence it brings her. She’s proud as punch of her machine. Pay no attention to her for she’ll not hear a word you say.’
The Surveyor changed the violin from his right hand to his left before taking Biddy’s hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’ As she released his hand she shouted, ‘You’re very welcome.’ The Sergeant went and took a bottle of whiskey and two tumblers from a black press in the corner, its glass covered with a faded curtain, joking uncomfortably, ‘I call it the medicine-press,’ as the Surveyor opened the violin-case on the table. Biddy stood vacantly by the machine, not sure whether to return to her knitting or not; and as the Sergeant was asking the Surveyor if he would like some water in his whiskey she eventually shouted, ‘Would yous be wanting anything to ate now, would yous?’ ‘Yes. In a minute,’ the Sergeant mouthed silently. As soon as he poured the water in the whiskey and placed it beside the Surveyor, who had taken the violin from its case and was lovingly removing its frayed black silk, he apologized, ‘I won’t be a minute,’ and beckoned Biddy to follow him into the scullery. The door was opened on to a small yard, where elder and ash saplings grew out of a crumbling wall. Three hens were perched on the rim of a sawn barrel, gobbling mashed potatoes. As soon as Biddy saw the hens she seized a broom.
‘Nobody can take eyes off yous, for one minute.’
She struck with the broom so that one hen in panic flew straight to the window, rocking the shaving mirror.
‘Oh Jesus.’ The Sergeant seized the broom from Biddy, who stood stock-still in superstitious horror before the rocking shaving mirror, and then he quietly shooed the frightened hen from the window and out the door. He banged the door shut and bolted it with its wooden bolt.
‘We’d have had seven years without a day’s luck,’ she shouted, as she fixed the mirror in the window.
‘Never mind the mirror.’ He turned her around by the shoulders.
‘Never mind the mirror,’ she shouted, frightened, to show him that she had read his lips.
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ she shouted back.
‘We want something to eat.’
‘We want something to eat,’ she shouted back, but she was calming. ‘There’s eggs and bacon.’
‘Get something decent from the shop. Cheddar and ham. There’s salad still in the garden.’