Death Awaits Thee

by Maria Lang

Genres: General Fiction; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Puck Bure's meeting with Paul Sandwall in Stockholm is opportune. As the new manager of Drottningholm Palace Theatre, the historic eighteenth century Opera house on the outskirts of the city, he plans to open the season with a performance of Cosi fan tutte. Not only is Mozart's opera to be staged as a climax to the city's summer arts festival, but two celebrities - Danish prima donna Teresa Monrad and her ex- husband, world-famous conductor Prof. Matthew Lemming - are to take part. Tensions behind the scenes revolve around the beautiful yet volatile prima donna and when a macabre murder is committed, puck is drawn into the police investigation. A Swedish crime fiction classic and part of the inspiration behind the new BBC4 drama Crime of Passion.

Release date: July 31, 2014

Publisher: Mulholland

Print pages: 192

Sample

A TALL man in a light overcoat and with a pleasant angular face hailed me in the spring Saturday-morning crush in the street.

‘Hullo, Puck. It’s been a long time. Nice to see you again.’

At the sight of Paul Sandwall’s wide smile, I realized that it really had indeed been far too long. The six months I had spent on the editorial staff of that extremely exclusive magazine Insight had been both stimulating and great fun, and when the paper, in spite of all our efforts, died its inevitable financial death, I had mourned the loss as much as had its originator and chief editor.

We were soon deeply absorbed in memories.

‘Do you remember that marvellous pale mauve cover to the November issue, which was never completed?’

‘And Lars Forssell’s wonderful Ode-to-a-Horizontally-Striped-Cat …’

‘That awful interview with Harry Martinson, which was to have been about lyrics of the fifties, and turned out as a monologue on the right way to use a telescope …’

‘And your agonies every month when you had to refuse a poem by our publisher …’

There we stood, just outside a huge store window, effectively blocking the traffic on the narrow pavement. Paul stretched out his arm to save me from being impaled on the point of a long and carelessly held umbrella.

‘How’re things with you nowadays?’ he said. ‘When will your thesis be finished?’

‘Never,’ I said gloomily. ‘Edwin says I have developed a remarkable capacity for avoiding doing anything about it, but that’s the only remarkable capacity I have developed. He’s working himself to death anyhow, and I don’t know that that’s either desirable or sensible. And what about you? What have you been up to?’

The question was not just a rhetorical one. Paul Sandwall was not only a publisher’s reader and theatre critic on one of the dailies, but usually also had several sidelines on the go, such as editing modern magazines or writing for controversial wireless programmes. Now a pleased, almost rapturous glint appeared in his grey-brown eyes and his smile grew even broader and happier.

‘I’ve got an appointment of which I’m very proud,’ he said. ‘I’m to manage the Drottningholm Theatre all through the summer.’

We became involved with a bunch of schoolboys and girls and I was pushed up against him, so my awed congratulations were uttered somewhere in the region of his blue tie. Through the noise all round us, his voice reached me, quiet and pleased.

He told me that not only had he been in love with the Drottningholm Theatre since he was a little boy and had run round the park when on holiday with a gardener uncle there, but also that by sheer chance things had worked out so admirably that the ‘proper’ managers were both away on business trips abroad at the same time.

‘Gustaf Hilleström has got a grant to study the rôle of music and drama in France and the Professor has been invited to a humanist conference and lecture tour in the States. I’ve helped quite a bit out there, and I hope to make a good job of it all, but it’s a terrific responsibility, and I must admit I’m suffering slightly from first-night nerves.’

Nerves were something I had never connected with one as well-balanced as Paul Sandwall, but I said encouragingly that I would keep my fingers crossed for him and then asked him what they were going to do this season.

‘Anything new, or all last year’s stuff?’

‘Something new and great fun. They’re going to do a new production of Cosi fan tutte.’

And he sang cheerfully:

‘Cosi fan tutte … that’s what they all do.’

As I considered it not quite the moment to mention that I had never seen the opera, I mumbled my general approval. I felt the chill spring air penetrating my new red suit and shivered a little, but Paul went on with infectious enthusiasm.

‘Guess who’s going to conduct? Produce it too, for that matter. Matthew Lemming!’

A young blonde girl who had been wistfully contemplating a cascade of lace in a shop window, turned round in astonishment.

And well she might.

For every one, musical or otherwise, knew that Matthew Lemming was one of the most famous and admired conductors in the world. He lived in America now and his visits as guest conductor had been both expensive and rare.

I was as astonished as the blonde girl.

‘No, really? Can the Opera House afford to bring him over?’

‘Of course not,’ said Paul dryly. ‘They can’t afford any notable visiting guest conductors. But the city has at last realized that the Drottningholm Theatre is its best tourist attraction and has found the money for this production. And Lemming himself is very interested in the project.’

‘Do you know him personally?’

‘Yes and no. I met him once or twice when he was here during the war, but that was at big affairs, and you know how much one gets to know the guest of honour at those things.’

‘He’s supposed to be terribly nice …’

Paul shrugged his powerful shoulders.

‘Well … he’s outspoken, and he certainly has his share of charm, but I wouldn’t call him terribly nice. He’s nothing much to look at actually … a small fat man with grey hair and …’

‘Paul dear, don’t shatter my illusions. Matthew Lemming is one of the famous men worshipped by every female in the country. We want to believe that he’s a demonic and romantic breaker of hearts.’

Paul laughed and we parted company after exchanging the usual civilities about seeing each other again soon. Anyhow, I had no idea that he had meant what he said.

But he must have done, because in the middle of the following week, he rang up and asked whether Edwin and I would like to come to his place for a drink on Sunday afternoon.

‘It’s the day before the first rehearsal out at the theatre, and I thought it’d seem polite if the new manager introduced Matthew Lemming to the whole cast in a civilized way … do you agree? I’m glad. No, I want you two to come just because you’re not opera people. You’re to be the civilized way … Fine. See you on Sunday then …’

I was delighted and flattered, so doubly disappointed when Edwin apparently did not share my enthusiasm.

‘In the first place,’ he said peevishly, ‘I’m exhausted and flat out after an unusually hectic term at the university, and I need my Sundays to rest in. Secondly, there is no form of social gathering I detest more than artificial cocktail parties. Thirdly, I’m allergic to conceited opera singers. Just look at that ass in the flat next door. I feel sick every time I meet him in the lobby.’

But now it was my turn to express displeasure.

‘I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that I might too be very tired of always seeing you in a state of exhaustion – in so far as I ever see you. Do you realize that we haven’t been out for dinner together or to the theatre since last Easter? You’re forever knee deep in some old treatise on villages in the Middle Ages. I’m telling you …’

‘No, no, for God’s sake, don’t. I’ll come with you and I’ll be as meek as a lamb, I promise you.’

He kissed me absently and went back to his desk, and I set about planning what I should wear. What on earth did one wear to be introduced to Matthew Lemming? The pencil-slim yellow or the off-the-shoulder shocking pink? I’d have to buy some new shoes, of course … and perhaps a bag.

Bag and shoes it became, not to mention a microscopic white hat costing seven pounds. The Sunday came round and Edwin was nice enough to say that the shocking pink went well with my complexion and my dark hair, but otherwise his promised meekness was not all that in evidence.

‘Out there,’ he muttered irritably as he put on his dark jacket. ‘What an idiotic idea having a party right out there. All we’ll get will be a couple of salted almonds and a sausage on a stick and five or six Americanized drinks. Enough so that one daren’t drive and not enough to justify an expensive taxi …’

‘Paul Sandwall lives out there,’ I explained patiently. ‘And he’s a widower and presumably not madly good at cooking. Is my hat all right?’

‘If that’s meant to serve as a hat, then it’s all right. Can I ring for a taxi?’

The bell that we heard, however, came from the door. Edwin went to open it and I observed from his tone of voice that it was not one of his dearest friends standing on the threshold.

‘Yes … yes, that’s right, we’re going out to Paul Sandwall’s … share the taxi? … Well, perhaps that would be practical …’

And into our flat pranced Richard Annerfelt, the opera singer – the same young man whom Edwin had said made him sick on sight. In contrast to my husband, I was part curious, part amused as I gazed at our handsome neighbour with undisguised interest.

What I saw was a slim figure with wavy blue-black hair and a face which was almost perfectly formed; a face which bore witness to ancient and fine – perhaps too ancient and fine – breeding, and at first I found it difficult to understand Edwin’s distaste. True, one could trace a slight touch of effeminacy in his movements, true, his cloudy blue suit and double-breasted waistcoat were perhaps a shade too elegant, but Edwin seldom allowed such details to influence his judgement on his fellow human beings.

But Richard Annerfelt seized my hand, carried it to his lips and said:

‘Mrs Bure, I am beside myself with joy! I have long anticipated meeting the most charming and attractive lady in the whole building.’

And then I understood. A person who behaved like this and used the same exaggerated tone of voice in one’s living-room as he did in the Royal Theatre was bound to be somewhat trying.

This presumption became certainty by the time we had arrived at Paul’s house. Edwin had strategically sat next to the driver and left me to cope with the handsome baritone.

That he was a baritone was almost immediately evident. A baritone who, according to him, had a far more exquisite instrument than that of Joel Berglund, Sigurd Björling and other singers who for some incomprehensible reason had been favoured by the very limited management of the Opera House.

‘But I am still young … not yet thirty. I’ll have to wait until those old chaps die off. Did you hear me as Papageno in The Magic Flute? No? That really is your loss … I was really good in that. Though of course Jill Hassel was not really right for that part, and that unfortunately pulled the production down.’

All the time he articulated his words with the same care as he would if singing an aria. Half despairing, half laughing, I wondered how one ever managed to extract a spontaneous nuance from that well-handled voice. To lure him into conversation which centred on something other than Richard Annerfelt was apparently quite out of the question.

‘And what do you think about performing under Matthew Lemming?’ I said politely.

‘That will be extremely instructive. Though I must warn you that it is a very badly assembled cast. It is so very uneven. Well, Geraldson and Brickman are acceptable, but how Jill Hassel is going to be able to sing Despina is quite beyond my comprehension.’

An attack of coughing came from the front seat but Richard Annerfelt was undaunted. He gazed at me with his moist, chestnut-brown eyes and said reproachfully:

‘And as my opposite number they’ve got a girl making her début. Nice and sweet, mind you, and with a not unpleasing voice, but making her début. That really is taking things a little bit far, don’t you think?’

At this my husband turned his head and remarked coldly:

‘If all of them are weak or half-trained then you can hardly call it an uneven cast.’

But irony had no effect on Richard Annerfelt.

‘They’re not all bad,’ he protested. ‘Why, Teresa Monrad is in it.’

Teresa Monrad had been the darling of the Stockholm public for almost twenty years and wherever one went, one heard her praises sung. That her conceited young colleague had joined in on this chorus of praise was surprising. I began, in fact, to look on him with rather more tolerance, but we had no time to pursue the subject as Edwin announced that we had arrived at Paul’s address. The taxi made its way along a winding street, where on one side there were handsome houses and the other nothing but tree-covered slopes. We passed the entrance to a yellow, two-storey house, swung round a bend and braked sharply in front of the next gate, which was white and low, just like the house behind it.

Our host received us on the steps, smiling his friendly smile and even Edwin, who had known and approved of Paul ever since their student days, brightened up a little. Inside the house’s pleasant, angular drawing-room our mood lightened even more.

There were only three people there before us and of them none reminded one obviously of Richard Annerfelt.

On the contrary.

I took a liking to Stephen Brickman as soon as I saw his huge figure and heavy, good-natured face. He was the eldest of them, probably between fifty and sixty, and I knew he was a clever character actor, especially in comic parts. At close quarters like this his body seemed immense and I wondered how much he in fact weighed. Fourteen or sixteen stone? He smiled down at me and rumbled heartily:

‘It’s just as well you women can wear high heels. Otherwise I’m damned if any of you would even come up to my navel.’

At his side stood a very young, fair girl with a clear skin and surprisingly large eyes. Paul introduced us.

‘This is Diana Fors, the Opera’s new hope, who is making her début as Dorabella in our production.’

‘And who’s absolutely scared to death at the prospect.’

The remark had not come from Diana, who said nothing and flushed, but from a tall, slim brunette with short hair and a funny cheeky face. Her low-cut black dress in some way made Diana’s blue flowered one appear home-made and old-fashioned.

The brunette screwed up her eyes – at Edwin mostly – and said:

‘I’m Jill Hassel. And to the despair of dear Richard, I am to take part in yet one more performance.’

Dear Richard was impatiently roaming round the floor.

‘Where’s Teresa? Didn’t she promise to come?’

Jill Hassel sank into a green armchair and teasingly imitated his theatrical tone of voice.

‘Yes, dear friend, Teresa has promised to be here eventually. Until then you will have to calm down a few octaves.’

Paul handed round good strong drinks and for. . .