He’d been barely eleven, visiting family friends in Surrey a year or so before the war broke out; he retained a faint image of a slender, scarlet-clad, flame-like presence whirling through Beethoven, Brahms and something very Hungarian. He’d thought her beautiful, but a little weird, as if she had landed on the earth from a distant world; perhaps a bird changed into a woman via some inverted Ovidian metamorphosis.

‘I’d love to tell you this is one big jest,’ said Tovey. ‘But… Jelly and her sister are not like that. In a funny kind of way, they’re innocents. They don’t know how to be dishonest. They grew up with a ferocious father – can you imagine, head of the police in Budapest… ’

‘So, you’re convinced they are not making it up and they haven’t just stumbled upon something Onkel Jo once said over the palinka?’

‘There is a concerto, and its existence is noted in at least one very good book. And no matter how it has come to our attention, it’s time to find it. Here is my question: do you think the doctors Strecker might consider helping to track it down, on the premise that they may then publish it?’

Ulli thought fast. It would be an amazing stroke of fortune to lay hands on such a work, especially if it turned out to be as good as Schumann’s Piano Concerto. ‘Perhaps Willy could write to Joachim’s son. I’m sure he mentioned he was interned together with him in England during the war… ’ Odd, he reflected, that bonds forged in deprived communal conditions, over scant meals, or at unthinkable toilet facilities, could be stronger by far than those made over champagne cocktails at the Hotel Adlon. He had never had friends as close as those he made in childhood, stealing apples and pears from the orchards and gorging on them by the brook through the meadows. They were all hungry, they all had nothing to lose, and they would never forget one another’s parlous state in those days, no matter how well subsequent fortune might treat them.

‘Ulli, I’d be most grateful if you could run this by him, or at least the existence of the piece – there’s no need to mention the, er, spirit aspect. I’ve had to almost physically restrain Jelly from jumping on the first boat to go and look for the manuscript herself.’

‘Perhaps she should.’

‘Awkward and potentially dangerous. Joachim… ’

‘Oh, God.’

‘At least they’re in Britain,’ said Tovey. ‘At least they’re safe.’

A circuit connected in Ulli’s mind: Tovey’s tone was tremulous enough to tell him that the d’Arányi sisters’ safety meant the light of the sun and moon to this revered academic.