‘The easiest thing for me would be to tally the marks on your sheets and announce a winner. However, I feel the occasion would be better served if each of us briefly explains his or her decision. I, as chairman, will voice an opinion but will not cast a vote. Perhaps, Mrs Adams, you would take a note of the comments? As a matter of record, and to avoid contention.’ Sandra nods neatly; Olly looks uncertain, out of his depth.

‘Professor Murch, would you mind getting us started?’ Brenda Murch, spinsterly piano tutor and provincial soloist, pushing fifty and past hope, is flushed with wine and bursting to give us the benefits of her limited emotional experience. ‘Number three, Maria Olszewska, is the most accomplished young pianist I have heard in more years than I care to acknowledge,’ she spouts. ‘Setting aside her technique, which is formidable, I was moved and engaged by her intelligent interpretations. Her charm is abundant. She had the audience in the palm of her hand. She is quite a find.’

‘Anyone else catch your eye, Brenda?’ I ask, eliciting a vigorous shake of that frizzy grey head of unstroked hair.

‘Mr Adams?’ I proceed, turning to Olly.

‘Well you know I think the al-Haq boy is a bit special, but I’m no expert and I was knocked sideways, as we all were, by the lovely Olszewska. She wins by a mile. Just so long as my boy gets some kind of consolation prize.’

‘How much can your department afford?’ I enquire.

‘Will a grand do?’ asks Olly.

‘Very nicely,’ I assure him. ‘Your turn, Fred.’

The Tawburn Kapellmeister keeps it short and votes for Olszewska. His verdict lacks gravitas and Olly picks his teeth throughout. Without family or political friends, the able and dedicated Fred gets treated – like Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, he once wistfully told me – as a municipal dogsbody, at the beck and call of uncultured superiors and itinerant bishops.

‘Arthur?’ I continue. Professor Arthur Brind, violin master of the Great Northern, declares vociferously for the pianist Olszewska – ‘unquestionably a talent’. ‘None of the fiddlers, Arthur?’ I tease, knowing that this sour dwarf of a tenured teacher has wrecked many a prospective career by filling young violinists with false dreams and fake methods. ‘No flair on the G string tonight?’

‘Well, I noticed you took a fancy, Martin, to the last kid – but I heard nothing special,’ sniffs Brind, his last contribution before a shot of Courvoisier snuffs him out for the night. The professor will wake up tomorrow in his Manchester rooms, wondering what that fifty-quid Tawside Council cheque is doing in the breast pocket of his dress suit.

‘The Stemp boy does have something,’ Fred Burrows chips in, trying to be helpful. ‘His phrasing was quite unusual. I found it a bit distracting, but it may be worth watching. I’d like to hear him again a year from now.’

‘Stemp has something that made me sit up,’ agrees Olly, swimming with the tide.