‘No, no, but… ’

Elisabeth surveyed her, head on one side. ‘What is it you’re trying to do? Why is this concerto so important to you? Forgive me, but it seems to be coming to obsess you a little bit.’

‘It’s there,’ Jelly hedged, ‘and they chose me to find it.’

‘Other than that.’

‘I don’t know… I’m perhaps – trying to save something. The only thing that I might ever be able to save.’

‘Like a kitten from a lake?’

‘Not exactly. More a matter of… salvaging something good, something worthwhile out of my life, while I can.’ Jelly fought the tears that often accompanied her mental images of Sep, Tom, Anna, the hospital patients, the Yorkshire children. ‘Do you think your brother Johannes would be able to help? Could you convince him?’

‘Oh, Jelly… ’ Elisabeth hesitated, avoiding Jelly’s watery gaze. ‘It’s very difficult. I can’t quite contemplate asking him to do that, having seen how Eugenie feels about it. And as for what he’d say about your spirit messages… well, I’m not sure that I can feel it would be the right thing.’

Jelly despaired. The spirits must advise, then. She would prefer wise words from live human beings. But if not that, what else?

Chapter 8

Ulli Schultheiss thought the Queen’s Hall one of the finer venues he had had the pleasure of attending, at least in terms of acoustics. The place had scarcely changed in the 20-odd years since he first walked through its doors as a star-struck schoolboy, visiting from pre-war Germany. He wondered if it had even been repainted.

The best of British, Tovey remarked, escorting him up Regent Street from his hotel near Piccadilly Circus, but the hall still seemed to Ulli the embodiment of British understatement, or underestimation, possibly, of its contents’ worth. It stood on the corner of Langham Place, beside a small church that now was dwarfed on its other side by the pale stone of the recently completed BBC Broadcasting House. The interior was a delicate taupe. ‘Supposedly the colour matches the belly of a London house mouse,’ Tovey declared, while they queued to leave their winter coats and hats in the cloakroom.

Ulli felt fortunate to be here at all. He’d persuaded Willy Strecker to delegate the trip to him, on the grounds that any discussions concerning the Schumann Violin Concerto could be merely speculative at this stage. Strecker responded to his cautious mention of ‘spirit messages’ with remarkable equanimity. What really mattered was the concerto’s commercial potential. Fighting the embargo would require a considerable input of time and effort; they should not get involved unless there was a convincing case for it. The piece had to be good enough, and if Clara and Joachim had chosen not to publish it, perhaps it really was questionable. ‘But go, Ulli,’ said Strecker, after some consideration. ‘See what you can find out. Then see what you can do.’