‘Because I had a good ear,’ he said. ‘I had a good ear, so I could sense a world of difference between the playing of a first-class pianist and my own efforts at the keyboard. I always felt there was an unbridgeable gap between the melody I heard in my head and what my fingers produced. And I could never bridge that gap.’

‘But thanks to all that an excellent piano tuner was born.’

I thought he was going to scoff, but instead his face broke into a wide grin.

‘You’ve grown to be quite the smooth-talking young man, Tomura.’ He laughed.

Looking nothing like the Mr Akino I knew, he opened the door of his car and drove steadily off.

Unusually that day, I had two appointments with clients. It was after seven when I finally got back to the office and found a note on my desk from Mr Yanagi: Good news! I looked at the two words of black scrawl on the memo pad and wondered what this could mean. Was it about the twins? I called his mobile from the office, and he answered straight away.

‘Hey.’

‘By good news, do you mean—?’

Before I could finish, he said, ‘Yes. They called, asking for an appointment. They want to restart tuning sessions.’

‘By restart, you mean—’

He interrupted again before I could finish the thought. ‘The Sakuras. The twins’ place. Their mother called.’

‘I see.’

So it was them. This was fantastic – how I’d been longing for this day.

‘So they’ve started playing again?’

A short silence on the other end of the line.

‘Well, at least one of them has.’

It had to be Kazune. If only the two of them could play again, I began to think, then reined in my emotions. If only one of them could play, that was certainly better than neither. Far better.

‘She asked, if it’s not too much of a bother, if you wouldn’t mind coming along as well.’

‘What? It’s OK for me to come along?’

‘The twins requested it, she said.’

So we fixed an appointment and visited the Sakuras’ home a week later, late in the afternoon.

Mrs Sakura welcomed us with a warm smile. ‘We’ve been looking forward to this,’ she said.

The twins came out and bowed together. ‘It’s been so long.’

I thanked the stars for their cheerful voices.

‘Sorry for all the trouble.’

‘We’re so happy you could come.’

‘We are, too.’ Mr Yanagi smiled back. ‘We’re extremely happy you asked us to tune for you again.’

Standing just behind him, I bowed in turn. For the whole time we hadn’t heard from them, I’d felt as if there were a heavy stone lodged inside my chest. Now it was crumbling into dust.

They led us to the music room, and Mr Yanagi asked, ‘Do you have any special requests?’