“That’s about it,” I agreed.
“Then you’d better think up something fast, kid.” She pointed out of the window. “Because here they come right now.”
THE LAST CHORD
I ran back over to the window. Lauren was right. The blue van was at the end of Bayly Street. It would have reached us already if a truck hadn’t backed out of the construction site, blocking its path. Now it was stuck there while some guy in a yellow hat tried to direct the driver. Fortunately it was a tricky maneuver. They’d be stuck there for maybe another couple of minutes. How had they gotten back from Victoria so quickly? I played back what had happened in my mind and realized that my great escape had probably taken about an hour. It’s amazing how time flies when you’re having fun.
Lauren was in the kitchen, rummaging through the drawers. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m looking for a knife.” She held up a whisk.
“This is all I can find.”
“They’ve got guns,” I reminded her. “You’re not going to get very far trying to whisk them.”
“I know. I know.” She threw the whisk over her shoulder. “So what are we going to do?”
What were we going to do? If we yelled for help, the only people who would hear us would be Gott and Himmell. The noise from the construction site would see to that. Even if we found a knife, it would be no defense against automatic pistols. There was no way out and any minute now they’d be coming in. I looked out of the window. The truck seemed to be pinned at an angle across the road. The man in the yellow hat was frantically giving directions, swatting at invisible flies. I heard the truck grind into gear. It began to edge backward. Soon the road would clear and the blue van would come. It would come right underneath the window. I tried to remember where it had stopped when they brought me here. That time they’d parked in front of the door. Would they park there again? Perhaps.
“Lauren,” I said.
“Yes?” She’d found a corkscrew and a dessert spoon.
“Quickly . . .”
The window that I’d broken in through was, like I said, a French window. It came all the way down to the floor. I looked out again. The truck had almost completed its turn. The man in the yellow hat was walking away, his job done.
“The piano,” I said.
“The piano?”
“Come on!”
“Nick—this is no time for a concert.”
“That’s not what I have in mind.”
I got my shoulder down to the piano and began to push. It was on wheels which helped, but even so, it must have weighed a ton. It was a Bechstein, a great chunk of black wood with a gleaming white ivory smile. God knows how much it had cost, but if this is what you needed to be a pianist, it made a good argument for taking up the triangle. Lauren had figured out what I was doing and now she stood there, staring.
“Honey,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly serious,” I said.
“Deadly,” she agreed.
She came over and joined me. With the two of us pushing, the piano moved more easily. Inch by inch we drew closer to the open window. It was going to be a close fit, but the piano would just about slide through the frame. It occurred to me that that was probably how they’d gotten it in here in the first place. How long had it taken them to hoist it up? The return journey was certainly going to be a hell of a lot faster.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I gazed over the top of the piano. The truck was in the clear now, rumbling quickly away. The blue van slid forward toward us. I flexed myself. There was a bust of Beethoven or someone on the piano. He was frowning as if he knew what was about to happen. The blue van drew closer, slowing down as it prepared to park.
We pushed with all our strength. The piano shot forward. Its back leg went over the ledge and with a hollow jangle it teetered on the brink, the pedals digging into the carpet. The van was almost level with us now. I pushed again. The piano resisted. Then, with a wave of relief, I felt it topple over backward. I can tell you now, Bechstein grand pianos are not built with any consideration for aerodynamics. It must have been a bizarre sight as it plummeted through the air: a huge black beast with three rigid legs and no wings. It flew for all of two seconds. Then it crashed fair and square into the van.
It was the Bechstein’s last chord, but it was a memorable one. If you imagine someone blowing up an orchestra in the middle of Beethoven’s Fifth, you’ll get the general idea. It was an explosion of music—or a musical explosion. A
The Bechstein was finished and I somehow doubted that the van would be doing much more traveling either. It hadn’t been completely crushed, but it must have been disappointed. Steam was hissing out of the radiator and two of the tires were spinning away like giant coins. Black oil formed a sticky puddle around the wreckage. The exhaust pipe had shot away like a rocket and was lying about a hundred feet down the road. The whole twisted carcass of the van was covered in splinters of wood and wires. One of the piano’s legs had shattered the front window. I didn’t like to think what it had done to the driver.
“Quite a performance, honey,” Lauren said.
“Concerto for piano and van,” I muttered.
And now people did come running. Suddenly it was as if Bayly Street had become Piccadilly Circus. They came from the construction site, from the left, from the right, from just about everywhere. They looked at the carnage. Then they looked up. I leaned out of the window and waved.
It was about twenty minutes later that one of the construction workers appeared in the Germans’ living room. He was carrying a pair of industrial pliers, which he must have used to cut through the two padlocks. Lauren and I were sitting on the sofa waiting for him.
“The piano . . .” He gaped at us. “Was it yours?”
“Sure,” I said. “But don’t worry. I wasn’t much good at it anyway.”
We walked out of the room, leaving him standing there. Well, what was he expecting? An encore?
We managed to slip away in the crowd, but not before I’d heard that—miraculously—nobody had been killed.
Apparently the driver of the van would have to be cut away from the steering wheel, while the passenger had managed to impale himself on the gearstick. A doctor had already arrived, but Gott and Himmell were more in need of a mechanic.
We got a taxi back to the office, where I picked up the real Maltesers and then we went straight on to Lauren’s place. There were too many people looking for me in Fulham. From now on I’d have to keep my head down and my raincoat collar up. Lauren lived in a huge condominium in Baron’s Court—about a ten-minute drive away. It was one of those great brick piles with fifty doorbells beside the front door and fifty people who don’t know one another inside. She had a basement apartment that must have been all of five inches above the main Piccadilly subway line. Every time a train went past, the floor rumbled. Or maybe it was my stomach. I hadn’t had a decent meal in twenty-four hours and I was hungry.
She left me in the living room while she went into the kitchen to fix supper. It was a cozy room in a theatrical sort of way, with a gas fire hissing in the grate, a kettle on the floor, and odd bits of clothes thrown just about everywhere. The furniture was old and tired, with a sofa that looked like it was waiting to swallow you up whole.
The walls were plastered with posters from theaters and music halls where Lauren had appeared, either as a singer or as an escape artist’s assistant. It was a room with a past but no future. A room of rising damp and fading
