Mortal Mischief

losing his balance and falling backwards.

He grabbed the door frame but found himself hanging out of the gondola, his feet barely keeping their precarious purchase on the cabin floor. He looked down at the vertiginous drop.

'That's it,' shouted Bruckmuller. 'See where you're going!'

Bruckmuller smacked his palm against the fingers of Liebermann's right hand, producing a white-hot shock of pain. The fear of death was suddenly superseded by a lesser anxiety: it occurred to Liebermann that his fingers might be crushed and that he might never play the piano again. A helpful gust of wind allowed him to pull himself forward a little. But again, Bruckmuller's palm slammed against his grasping fingers like a mallet blow. This time, the incandescent pain was short-lived and was soon replaced by a terrible numbness. Liebermann's hand had become insensate and he watched with detached resignation as his fingers slowly began to slip away from the door frame.

Bruckmuller raised his arm, ready for the final blow.

Suddenly there was a loud report and the noise of glass shattering.

The big man spun round, bewildered. A stain had appeared close to his shoulder – a dark circular stain that spread quickly, fed by a small bullet hole from which blood was bubbling. Liebermann scrambled back into the gondola and threw the weight of his body against Bruckmuller who lost his footing and stumbled backwards – grabbing at the lapels of Liebermann's coat.

Liebermann found himself being dragged after Bruckmuller. The big man's shoulders hit the cabin's woodwork, bringing his bulky body to an abrupt halt. Bruckmuller leaned against the cabin wall for support and drew Liebermann's head up so that it was level with his own. Liebermann struggled to get away but found that he could not move. Bruckmuller's superhuman grip held fast. Glancing down at the expanding stain, Liebermann said: 'Herr Bruckmuller, you have been shot.'

Bruckmuller's jaw began to move, as though he was chewing. Then, after clearing his throat, he hawked into the young doctor's face. Liebermann flinched as a ball of bloody mucus hit him and splattered across his cheek.

'I know I've been shot,' said Bruckmuller. 'And I don't want to be shot again.'

Liebermann realised that Bruckmuller was using him as a shield.

'There is no escape, Herr Bruckmuller.'

'Not for you – Doctor Jew.'

Bruckmuller's basso profundo vibrated in Liebermann's chest. Before Liebermann could respond, Bruckmuller's free hand closed around his neck. An instant later, Liebermann could not breathe. Instinctively, he tried to prise Bruckmuller's thick fingers apart – but his right hand was still numb and each of Bruckmuller's digits was slick with blood.

Liebermann was horrified by the look in Bruckmuller's eyes. Malice had been replaced by something far more sinister: detached concentration. Bruckmuller was like a scientist observing a creature expiring in a vacuum jar. He seemed to be willing Liebermann dead – dispassionately consigning him to oblivion. As the world began to darken around him, Liebermann became aware of a thought forming in his mind – a small voice, striving to be heard amid the noise and confusion.

I am not ready to die.

It was the closest that he had ever come to praying and even though he had not requested the intervention of a higher power this assertion – resentful and pathetic – was still an appeal. An entreaty. And, against all expectations, it appeared to have some effect.

Bruckmuller's serious, studious gaze clouded. His lids fell and then lifted in a sluggish blink – and, miraculously, Liebermann found that he could breathe again. He gulped the air hungrily, sucking it deep into his lungs through his painfully restricted windpipe. Bruckmuller's grip weakened and his fingers peeled away from Liebermann's throat one by one.

The big man's coat was soaked with his own blood. He blinked again and this time his lids remained closed for longer. Then he swayed and fell sideways, toppling to the floor.

Liebermann rested against the side of the gondola and tried to catch his breath. Looking out of the window, he experienced a curious illusion. The ground seemed to be rising up to meet the gondola. He glanced at Bruckmuller, whose supine body looked like that of a slumbering giant.

Bruckmuller pushed himself up with his left hand and then clasped his shoulder. Blood was gushing out between his big white knuckles. With his mouth wide open he was panting like a thirsty bulldog.

The wind whistled through the smashed window. In the next gondola, the soberly dressed bourgeois – clearly a police marksman – had his revolver at the ready for a second shot, should it prove necessary.

Bruckmuller shifted and immediately winced.

'If you get up,' said Liebermann, 'I have reason to believe that you'll be shot again. I would strongly advise that you remain exactly where you are.'

Bruckmuller closed his eyes and let his body fall back on to a bed of broken glass.

'May I . . .' Liebermann paused. 'May I attend to your wound, Herr Bruckmuller? You are losing a great deal of blood.'

The big man tried to open his eyes.

'Stay away from me . . . you filthy . . .'

But before the insult was complete Bruckmuller's eyelids flickered and he lost consciousness.

Liebermann crouched beside Bruckmuller and did what he could to staunch the flow of blood. But his right hand was still insensate and Bruckmuller was lying in an awkward position. He applied as much pressure as he could. The big man was still breathing but each breath seemed more shallow and difficult. His chest and stomach were hardly moving.

A chorus of metallic voices filled the air – the demented strains of the great wheel coming to a halt. The gondola had returned to the ground.

The door flew open and Rheinhardt stepped into the cabin.

Liebermann looked up from his patient.

'I believe he'll live,' he said softly.

86

THE SONGS THAT they chose were necessarily slow. Liebermann's right hand was better but his fingers were still bruised and stiff. He did not feel ready to play anything with a tempo marking faster than allegro moderato.

As a result their buoyant mood was not reflected in their music-making and what might have been an evening of carefree Landler and popular songs became instead a programme of wistful ballads and soulful meditations. Yet, as he plumbed the darker sonorities of the Bosendorfer, Liebermann recognised that this valedictory concert was more fitting. It was, after all, a murder investigation that had been brought to a successful conclusion.

After some dignified choral-like Beethoven they decided to end with 'Der Leiermann' from Schubert's Winterreise. The piano part was so sparse, so frugal that Liebermann had no trouble producing an entirely faultless performance. Bare fifths in the left hand imitated the sound of a drone, while the right hand picked out a sad, desolate melody. It was chilling music – stark and emotionless. Even the scarcity of notes on the page suggested the open, blank whiteness of a frozen landscape.

Rheinhardt's voice was sweet and true – each note produced with hardly any vibrato.

Druben hinterm Dorfe steht ein Leiermann.

'Over there beyond the village stands an organ-grinder . . .'

Numb with suffering, Schubert's narrator follows blindly:

'Strange old man, should I come with you?'

As the final chord faded, with its promise of redeeming cold and oblivion, Liebermann lifted his hands off the keyboard. Reverently, he closed the piano lid, allowing the sustain pedal to amplify its beat, the hollow echo of which dissolved into the vastness of an imaginary icy waste.

'Well, Max,' said Rheinhardt, 'that wasn't too bad at all, considering. You acquitted yourself rather well.'

'Thank you,' said Liebermann, raising his right hand and rubbing his fingers together with a swift scissoring