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  Recent Titles by Sarah Rayne from Severn House

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  CHORD OF EVIL

  A Phineas Fox Mystery

  Sarah Rayne

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  This eBook edition first published in 2017 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Rayne.

  The right of Sarah Rayne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8741-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-856-9 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-916-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  ONE

  It was halfway through the party when Toby Tallis said, anxiously, ‘Phin, I’m worried about my cousin Arabella.’

  Phineas Fox had not actually wanted to attend this party, but it was being given by his ebullient, rugby-playing neighbour, whose flat occupied part of the big North London house where Phineas lived. Since the party would certainly be loud and long, and would probably spill cheerfully out of Toby’s flat into everybody else’s, Phin had thought he might as well go to the centre of the storm and be part of it, rather than fume crossly on the outskirts or bang angrily on the walls.

  He had in fact started to enjoy himself. He was on his third glass of wine, somebody had handed him a plate of smoked-salmon sandwiches, and he had become involved in a lively argument with four complete strangers about the rival bawdiness of Elizabethan round songs as opposed to Victorian street ballads. A suggestion had just been made that Phin and Toby collaborate on a book about bawdy ballads, and Phin was trying to decide how seriously to view this. But Toby’s cherubic face was uncharacteristically anxious, so Phin said, ‘What’s wrong with Arabella?’

  ‘She hasn’t turned up. And,’ said Toby, ‘she definitely intended to come tonight, because – wait a minute, the email’s still on the phone …’

  He fished in a pocket, flipped his phone to email, and passed it to Phin.

  Arabella’s email said:

  Toby, I’m looking forward to your party, because I want to meet your intriguing new neighbour, the one I saw from the window of your flat that day – the one with the silver eyes and the look of remote and intellectual sexiness. Is he sufficiently remote that I’ll have to call him Mr Fox, do you know? I hope not, because it sounds like something out of Aesop’s Fables. Anyway, short of Armageddon or the bailiffs arriving, I’ll be there. I’m disastrously broke again, in fact my entire wardrobe is currently on eBay, so don’t be surprised if I turn up at the party wearing the drawing room curtains like Scarlett O’Hara.

  Lots of love.

  ‘It’s not like her not to turn up without letting me know,’ said Toby. ‘And her phone goes straight to voicemail. I know she’s a bit scatty, but it’s almost midnight and I’m really concerned.’

  ‘What exactly were you thinking of doing?’

  ‘I think I should just dash along to her flat,’ said Toby.

  ‘Now, d’you mean?’

  ‘I can pick up a taxi and be there and back before anyone notices I’ve gone.’

  He waited, and Phin said, ‘Did you want me to – to keep an eye on things while you’re gone?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Toby, ‘I wondered if you’d come with me.’

  ‘Where does your cousin live?’ asked Phin as they bucketed across London ten minutes later.

  Toby had summoned a taxi with remarkable efficiency and speed, considering he had been drinking alcohol with some gusto for the last three hours. Phin, for whom the cold night air had felt like a wall rearing up to smack him in the face, was not sure if he could have flagged down so much as a pushbike.

  ‘She’s got a flat in Pimlico.’

  Phin thought that of course Arabella would live somewhere like Pimlico.

  ‘She likes the echoes of painters and writers and whatnot who’ve lived in the area,’ said Toby, indulgently. ‘She says she can hear them like footsteps just out of hearing or something. She’s perfectly capable of managing her own life,’ he added, firmly. ‘But she’s apt to be a bit unpredictable. She darts around after half a dozen things at the same time, like that winged creature with blue and green wings.’

  ‘Dragonfly?’

  ‘That’s the one. Her parents died when she was very young, so apart from me, she hasn’t got any family to speak of.’

  The house in which Arabella Tallis pursued her dragonfly existence was a tall redbrick building, overlooking a small park.

  ‘I’ve got a key and the code for the front door,’ said Toby, as they got out of the taxi. ‘And I’m very glad you’ve come with me, Phin, because between ourselves you never know quite what you might find in Arabella’s flat.’

  By this time, Phin was prepared for anything, from abandoned lovers languishing on the doorstep, bodies littering the carpets, and décor ranging from suggestive French boudoir to floral chintz. The reality was completely normal and pleasingly tasteful. There were comfortable sofas with extravagant cushions, and walls the colour of amber with light behind it. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled two fireplace alcoves – the contents included Chekhov and Charles Dickens, chick-lit, crime fiction, the C. S. Lewis Narnia books, and assorted biographies. Phin was relieved to see all the curtains seemed to be in place.

  ‘Everything looks all right,’ said Toby, having switched on the lights. ‘I’ll make a quick tour, though.’ He left Phin in the sitting room, and came cheerfully back several moments later. ‘All good. So I’m probably being totally neurotic, and … Jesus God Almighty, what’s that doing here?’

  He was staring at a small portrait resting on a low table, propped against the wall.

  ‘It’s a portrait,’ said Phin, having turned to look.

  ‘I know it’s a bloody portrait, the question is how it got here.’

  ‘Isn’t it Arabella’s?’ The possibility that Arabella might have added art theft to her dragonfly activities flickered alarmingly across Phin’s mind.

  ‘It certainly is not,’ said Toby, very forcefully. ‘It belongs to the godfather.’ Then, as Phin looked startled, he said, ‘Sorry – I know that sounds Marlon Brando or A
l Pacino and a horse’s head on the pillow. I mean a real godfather. Arabella’s and mine. Nice old boy. Stefan Cain. Came to England from Germany in the late 1940s, I think. Refugee after World War Two – he was very young of course, barely in his teens. And that,’ said Toby, jabbing a finger at the portrait, ‘has been on his wall since anyone can remember. It’s a painting of his sister and it’s practically a holy relic.’

  The portrait that had apparently transported itself to the Pimlico flat was not very large – probably about 25 by 20 inches – and set in a narrow frame. The subject was a dark-eyed lady in her mid-twenties or early thirties. She was holding what looked like a letter, but she was looking out of the canvas as if pleased to see someone. Phin thought her gown, which was green silk, was from the 1940s, and she had dark hair, looped smoothly back from her brow.

  ‘Did you say it’s your godfather’s sister?’ said Phin.

  ‘Yes. Her name was Christa. I’d forgotten how striking the portrait is,’ said Toby. ‘I can’t believe Stefan’s given it away, not even to Arabella.’

  Phin, who had been examining the back of the portrait in case there might be a date, said, ‘I don’t think he did give it away. Not in that sense, anyway. Look.’

  Taped lightly to the back of the painting was a handwritten note, folded untidily, the writing careless, as if an emotion so strong had driven the writer he had not bothered about legibility. It said:

  Arabella, my dear – I would much rather have destroyed this painting, but since you insisted, here it is. I don’t care what you do with it – you can burn it and scatter the ashes to the four winds for all I care. I never want to see it again.

  Best love to you and Toby, as always. Both of you come to Greymarsh soon, please.

  Stefan

  ‘That’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever come across,’ said Toby, taking the note from Phin and re-reading it. ‘Christa died years ago – I never knew her, of course, and neither did Arabella. But Stefan adored her, and I’m sure this is the only likeness of her that he’s got. And yet he’s flung this out so – so theatrically.’

  ‘It sounds as if he was going to destroy it, but Arabella persuaded him to let her have it instead. What’s Greymarsh?’

  ‘It’s the godfather’s house in Romney Marsh – beautifully Bronte-esque sounding, isn’t it? Straggling old place, all twisty stairs and windows looking across marshlands. Arabella loves it; she goes there more often than I do – she says the place is in tune with her inner gothic soul, or something.’

  Phin hesitated, then asked a careful question as to Stefan Cain’s mental state. ‘Elderly people sometimes start giving their possessions away – I mean, they can become a bit eccentric—’

  ‘Tactfully put. But Stefan’s as sharp as a pin,’ said Toby. ‘All the mental connections are still absolutely in the right places. I saw him at Christmas, and Arabella clearly saw him more recently. She’d have said if he’d succumbed to sudden madness like Lear or George the Third, and been babbling of green fields or addressing his pillow as Prince Octavius. Do I mean Prince Octavius?’

  ‘No idea. What’s the date on that note?’

  ‘Um – two days ago.’

  ‘And,’ said Phin, thoughtfully, ‘within forty-eight hours of your cousin having this painting in her flat—’

  ‘She’s apparently disappeared? Well,’ said Toby, on a note of decision, ‘that settles one thing. I’ve got no idea where Arabella is, but I’m not leaving that painting here.’

  He wrote a careful note for his cousin, explaining that he had kidnapped the portrait for safety, and Sellotaped it to the sitting-room door, where, as he said, it could not be missed.

  When they reached Toby’s flat, the party was still going happily on.

  ‘I told you they wouldn’t miss me,’ said Toby. ‘And now I come to think about it, I don’t think it’ll be a good idea to keep Christa in my flat tonight, do you? I’d hate something to be spilled on it or find it’s been used as a dartboard – you know how these things happen – and Arabella would never forgive me.’ He eyed Phin hopefully.

  With a feeling of inevitability, Phin said, ‘We could put it in my flat for the night.’

  ‘Good man. Knew you’d understand.’

  The painting was duly deposited in Phin’s bedroom.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Toby, approvingly. ‘You’ll wake up to see her at the foot of your bed. I can think of worse sights, can’t you?’

  Phin was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at the painted figure. ‘She had beautiful hands, didn’t she?’ he said, thoughtfully.

  ‘Careful, Phin, she’s been dead for years. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting ideas like that bloke in the old film – Laura, was it?’

  ‘Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney,’ said Phin absently, his eyes still on the painting. ‘And some marvellous backing music. But I’m not getting any ideas.’

  ‘Well, I’m getting ideas about another drink. Let’s get back to the party. We might even find that Arabella’s turned up.’

  By this time Phin did not really want to return to the party, but he said that a quick drink was a good idea, only after that, if Toby did not mind, he would call it a night.

  There was not, in fact, a great deal of the night left, and although there was no sign of Arabella, the guests appeared to have recognized the lateness of the hour, because there had been a move to fry bacon and eggs. Toby was greeted with the news that there had been a bit of a crisis while he was out, absolutely nothing to worry about though, and it had been the purest oversight that had caused the frying pan to burst into flames. But hardly any damage had been done, and probably the kitchen ceiling had needed re-painting anyway.

  Several pyjama’d people had come crossly along landings to ask whether Mr Tallis realized it was three a.m., and Miss Pringle from the garden flat, who usually went to bed with ear plugs and Inspector Barnaby when Toby had a party, had panicked at the shouts of Fire, and had ventured timidly up the stairs. She had been taken into the sitting room and given a large glass of whisky on the grounds that whisky was great for a shock, together with a bacon sandwich.

  Phin finally escaped to his own flat around five. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and studied Christa Cain’s enigmatic regard.

  The eyes drew him, but so, too, did the hands. They were expressive hands with slender wrists, and they might even be the hands of a musician – a pianist, perhaps. Phin thought he would ask Toby about that. He liked the idea of Christa having been a pianist.

  It was not until he got up to examine the portrait more closely, that he saw something that had probably planted the thought that she might have been a musician. The sheaf of papers in her hands were not letters after all, but music scores. There were two – or was it three? – sheets of music. Only the first page and the edges of the lower ones were visible, and although they did not look particularly faded or foxed, there was somehow a secretive air to them – almost as if the painter had wanted to convey the impression that the music might have been locked away for a very long time. This was so intriguing that Phin carried the portrait into his study, propping it up on his desk, and tilting the desk lamp so that the light fell fully across the music. At once the details came into sharper focus. The music was handwritten, and the title was clear – it was ‘Giselle’s Music’.

  And then he saw something else, and he stopped wondering who Giselle might have been, and he forget about going to bed, and began to tumble reference books from the shelves.

  TWO

  It was not really a surprise when Toby appeared later in the day. Phin let him in, and expressed suitable thanks for the party.

  ‘Bit of an unexpected night at times, wasn’t it?’ said Toby, grinning. ‘I’m glad I’m not disturbing you. I wanted to make sure that Christa’s still here.’

  ‘She is.’ Phin indicated the painting propped up on his desk. ‘D’you want some coffee? I only made it half an hour ago, so it’s still hot. Have you managed to reach y
our cousin?’

  Toby, accepting the coffee, said there was still no reply from Arabella’s phone. ‘But I can’t report her as a missing person yet, can I? You have to allow forty-eight hours for an adult, don’t you? She’ll have turned up by then,’ he said, firmly. ‘Have you found out why the godfather suddenly flung Christa out of the house like a Victorian zealot faced with a sinning housemaid?’

  ‘Not exactly a reason,’ said Phin, slowly. ‘But there’s something that is a bit unexpected.’ He tilted the portrait so that the light fell across it again, and indicated the music. ‘That chord there – d’you see? – is a tritone.’

  ‘What on earth—?’

  ‘It’s what’s called an interval of three tones, with an augmented fourth.’

  ‘Oh, well, of course I knew that,’ said Toby at once, and Phin grinned.

  ‘It’s not used very often,’ he said. ‘It’s quite discordant, and it was once called the diabolus in musica – the devil in music. It was banned in Renaissance church music, in fact. Church music was supposed to be a paean of praise to God, and the tritone was considered so ugly that it wasn’t thought suitable. Medieval arrangements even used it to represent the devil, and Roman Catholic composers sometimes used it for referencing the crucifixion. Its dissonance can work to advantage in some cases, though. In emergency sirens, for instance.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘I’ll never hear a police car again without thinking about that.’

  ‘But assuming Giselle was a composer of the era – possibly an amateur, because the music’s handwritten – that isn’t a chord you’d expect to find,’ said Phin. ‘Who was Giselle, do you know? Someone in Stefan Cain’s family?’

  ‘No idea. I’ve never heard of her. I don’t know anything about his family – I think he lost his parents in the war. They were a Jewish family, so it would have been a bad time.’ Toby set down his coffee mug and stood up. ‘You carry on chasing evil chords and mysterious ladies,’ he said. ‘But be careful you don’t end up too intrigued by Christa and Giselle.’