Paganini's Ghost by Paul Adam

Author:Paul Adam
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312383855
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, I worked on my violins, hollowing out part of a maple back for one instrument before changing tasks and carving a little more of the scroll for another. Paganini seemed to be in my blood at the moment, so I listened to some of his violin concertos—the box set LP version recorded by Salvatore Accardo in the 1970s—on the old record player that sits in the corner of my workshop.

I was growing weary and contemplating stopping for dinner, when the telephone rang. I could hear nothing but a fuzzy crackle on the line to begin with and was about to hang up, when a voice broke through the interference.

“Hello?”

It was a man’s voice, speaking in English.

“Yes?” I replied in the same language.

“Gianni?”

I realised who it was.

“Yevgeny? Is that you, Yevgeny?” I almost shouted into the phone.

“Yes, it is me.”

“Yevgeny, where are you? Are you all right?”

“Yes, I am all right.”

He sounded very faint. His voice was thin and tremulous.

“What’s happened?” I said. “Have you rung your mother?”

“No. I cannot speak to her.”

“Yevgeny, you must. She’s going crazy with worry. Where are you? Why did you disappear like that?”

“Please, Gianni, speak to my mother for me. Tell her I am okay. Tell her I am sorry.”

“Why can’t you speak to her yourself?”

“I just can’t.”

His voice cracked and I thought he was about to burst into tears.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s happened? Did someone take you away by force?”

“By force? No, nothing like that.”

“So where are you? People are worried. It’s not just your mother. The police are involved, too.”

“The police?”

“You vanished, Yevgeny. No one knows where you are. Anything could have happened. Of course your mother went to the police.”

“The police?” he said again. “I did not know.”

“Are you in trouble? What’s going on? Can I come and collect you?”

“Speak to Mama for me. Please, Gianni. I know I can trust you. Say I am sorry for all the trouble I am causing.”

“Do you need help? Tell me where you are, and I’ll come and get you. Are you in Cremona?”

“I will be back in a few days. I have to sort things out.”

“What things?”

“I will call you again. I am sorry.”

The line went dead. I pressed the recall button but got only a computerised voice-mail message. He’d turned off his mobile.

I left my workshop and went across the terrace and into the house, knowing I had to call both Ludmilla and Guastafeste, but unsure whom to ring first. I chose Ludmilla. Antonio’s involvement in the case was purely professional, his interest detached and objective, but Ludmilla was Yevgeny’s mother. Her life, her entire emotional being, was inextricably entwined with her son’s. She needed, and deserved, to be told first.

It wasn’t an easy call. The initial relief in her voice was so great that she sounded as if she were about to swoon. But then she recovered and became almost indignant.

“Why did he ring you?” she demanded. “He barely knows you.

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