The Hardanger Riddle (Cremona Mysteries Book 3) by Paul Adam

Author:Paul Adam [Adam, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Publishing
Published: 2020-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

The workshop was on the south-west side of the harbour in Bergen, a small, one-storey building hidden away off a dark, narrow alley that rose up the hillside in a series of steep steps. This was the old part of the city, dating back to the time of the Hanseatic League, when German seafaring traders dominated the economic life of the area. The buildings seemed to be a mixture of business and residential, mainly two storeys, but some taller and all clad with stout wooden planks painted mostly in muted colours – pale yellow and creams, though one or two had more striking dark red exteriors.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine what it must have been like a few hundred years ago, the harbour crammed with fishing boats and whalers, their masts and rigging like a forest sprouting from the water; the streets echoing with the clop of horses’ hooves and the rattle of cartwheels; the cramped little alleys crowded with dirty children and fishwives hawking their baskets of herring; the inns and alehouses teeming with raucous seamen, their pockets heavy with the proceeds of the catch; the merchants’ warehouses bustling with clerks and porters, the offices at the back quieter, more genteel little havens where the masters gathered to smoke and haggle and share a glass of the Scotch whisky or Polish schnapps that had just come in on one of their ships.

It was quieter now and undoubtedly more salubrious, but the buildings were still the same, though I guessed that their timber cladding must have been replaced and repainted over the years. We followed Aina up the flight of stone steps. A shallow channel beside them guided the rainwater down the slope to the harbour. Buildings towered up on either side, shutting out what little sunlight had managed to penetrate the mantle of cloud over the city. The sky was just a sliver of murky grey above us.

Twenty or thirty steps up, when I was starting to feel the gradient, Aina turned off through an archway into a tiny courtyard. Rikard’s workshop was at one side, a low wooden building with windows along its front and skylights in the sloping roof to maximise the amount of light getting in. Aina unlocked the door and led us in. There was room for us all, but only just. We shuffled around, trying to spread out a bit, but there was almost nowhere to go. We ended up in a line between the workbenches that took up three sides of the workshop.

I looked around at the tools hanging on racks, the violins in various stages of construction, and felt a pang of sorrow as it came home to me that Rikard would never again sit on that stool, never again use the chisels and saws and templates on the walls. Those half-finished instruments would remain forever in that state. I knew I wasn’t alone in my thoughts – I could see it in the others’ eyes, in the restrained, respectful way they were gazing at Rikard’s work.

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