“Martha,” she said and she must have seen me wince because she chuckled. “Yes, I know. I’m in the kitchen,” she said and led the way. It was a big kitchen with an oak table that was European but an array of large pots, ladles, and plastic washing-up bowls full of cassava and stockfish that was pure West African.

I declined tea and biscuits and we sat down at the far corner of the table.

“Mum’s at the hospital,” said Martha. “I’m just cleaning up.” She didn’t need to explain to me. Enough of my mum’s London family had died over the years for me to know the drill. Once word got out that Michael Adjayi was dead, the relatives would start coming around and God help Martha if the house wasn’t immaculate when they got there.

“Was he the eldest son?” I asked.

“Only son,” said Martha bitterly. “I’ve got two other sisters. They don’t live here anymore.”

I nodded to show I understood. Favored son, the girls work but the boy carries the name. “How long had he been playing jazz?”

“Mickey? Since forever,” said Martha.

“Did you think he was good?”

“He was brilliant,” she said.

I asked if her parents minded that he was going to be a musician but she said that Mickey had it covered. “He had a place at Queen Mary’s reading law,” she said. “He figured that would give him at least four years to become famous.”

And once he was famous Mother and Father wouldn’t care—as long as he was rich as well. Martha obviously thought it was a workable plan. I asked about his love life and apparently that wasn’t a problem either—at least not as much of a problem as it might have been.

“White girl?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “But Cherie was really nice and a bit posh so, you know, that softened the blow for Mum and Dad.”

Martha didn’t know the girlfriend’s details but she promised to ask her parents when they got back. She couldn’t think of anybody who had it in for Mickey, or anything suspicious at all. “He just went out one afternoon,” she said. “And came back dead.”

ON MY way back from Cheam I got a call from Ms. Ghosh at the Musicians Union. She wanted to tell me about the new wave of Anglo-Indian jazz that was coming out of Mumbai these days. I let her go on—it was better than the radio.

“Anyway,” she said eventually. “There was one case. A member called Henry Bellrush, died suddenly just after a gig. The reason I remember is because I’d met him a couple of times and he always seemed so fit and healthy. London Marathon and all that … sort of thing.”