What disturbed her was that Erik seemed to be annexing the concerto, making it his project rather than hers, when the spirits – if spirits they were – had asked specifically for her attention. That a London-based musician with a Jewish heritage should be selected to recover this concerto from Nazi Berlin seemed irrational at best, on the spirits’ part, and ridiculous at worst. Still, the idea that Erik could not even read the notes on the page infuriated her, revolving in her head like a gramophone record trapped under an insistent needle.

‘Sai, he wants to help you,’ Adila insisted. ‘People do want to help, you know. They are not all such bad souls as you seem to think.’

‘I don’t think he’s a bad soul. I just wonder… what he stands to gain.’

‘Proof,’ said Adila. ‘About the spirits. It validates everything we’ve been working for.’

That, Jelly reflected, was exactly what worried her. No matter how convinced Adila might be, few outsiders could believe in such a thing unless they saw it for themselves – and even then it would be hard to accept. Were Adila and Erik not setting themselves up for a serious dose of disappointment? Her concerto – or Schumann’s – was only a small concern for the baron within a much larger quest.

There was one concerto-hunting avenue that she could pursue alone: her cousin Elisabeth Joachim in Oxford. But by the time Jelly finally telephoned her to ask if she might visit, she had received a reply from Switzerland, its contents far indeed from what she had hoped.

*