The Tune Without The Words

The Tune Without The Words

Epigraph:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words, and never stops, at all.

And sweetest, in the Gale, is heard - and sore must be the storm

That could abash the little Bird that kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - and on the strangest Sea -

Yet never, in Extremity, it asked a crumb – of me.

Emily Dickinson

Prologue

1997

The old Cadillac bounced over the dirt road behind the battered grey Chevrolet Sprint as it turned left onto the grass and then faced the lake, just beyond a dilapidated fishing deck.

A tall man got out of the Sprint. His undershirt was dirty with rusty red marks, conflicting with sterility of his white latex gloves.

He opened the trunk. Inside was a rolled-up rug in pale green and rose colours.

The Cadillac driver joined him as he stared down into the trunk, pulling on his own latex gloves. The trunk smelled of the Sprint driver’s body odour, with a sharp, metallic tang overlaid.

“Glad you went this far to the left. Don’t want any issues. I was worried … Well, you know.” The Cadillac driver looked down into the trunk. “Shame about the rug. I’m gonna have to buy some new ones. You thinking you want another go around? It’s real quiet.”

“I enjoyed it, for sure, but no, let’s get this over with before anyone shows up.”

The Cadillac driver grunted and waited for the tall man to close the Sprint’s trunk and go round to the driver’s seat. He started the motor again and put the car in neutral before stopping the motor and taking off the handbrake. He adjusted the driver’s seat as far forward as it would go. He got out, reached in and pulled something out from the back seat, putting it on the roof of the car. He reached back in and took a uniform shirt from the passenger seat.

“Don’t want to leave those behind.” He chuckled at his feeble joke and took the object from the roof and put it on his head as he shrugged into the shirt. “Let’s get this done, then.”

“Let’s.” With the rush long gone, this was the part the Cadillac driver wanted nothing to do with, but it was essential. Once the thrill was gone, it was gone.

He put his hands on the rear quarters of the car alongside the other man, and together, they started to push. A sharp shove, and it was rolling towards the lake. They both let go and watched the dirty grey car nose over the lip of the shore and slide inelegantly down into the dark-brown waters. They moved forward to watch the car drop down until it vanished from view. The lake was nearly a hundred foot deep on this side. A bubble of marshy gas rose and burst at the surface.

The shorter man stripped his gloves off before taking a piece of kitchen paper from the door pocket and wiping his hands. He offered the paper to his colleague.

“Come on, get in. Let’s go.” The tall man took off his own gloves and stuffed them in his pants pocket. He took the paper and wiped his own hands as he walked round to the passenger side and climbed in.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter 1

The spectral blue Mercedes AMG SL63 roadster had eaten up the miles from Santa Barbara to Ocean Falls. Casey Richardson looked across at her passenger, Martin Blackwell, the international bestseller writer, a dark-haired man in his mid-forties. He was looking past her, at the sea. The Pacific had emerged from behind the hills on her left shortly after Goleta, as she’d stopped fighting the gearshift and started listening to it instead.

Casey knew he was only coming on this book tour because he wanted to visit Ocean Falls. Visits to San Diego, Pasadena, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and cities from Carmel and San Francisco to Tacoma and Seattle were largely window-dressing for his trip to this little town. She was still excited that Martin had agreed to have her as his liaison, effectively a full-time assistant. There was not, and never would be, anything between them. Martin had known her since she was four years old, and was effectively her uncle Martin, even without the age difference. Besides, he was always the perfect English gentleman. She had grown up in regular contact with Martin and his wife Angela, and the loss of Angela to leukaemia had been a savage blow to them all. Martin had refused to refer to her passing in any interview, and the fact that Angela was gone was not widely known.

Since Angela had died, Martin had not done any more media interviews or book tours. Prying him out of his North Carolina home to do a book tour had been ‘an excellent opportunity to get experience’ according to her father, and a ‘pointless, nightmare head-banging exercise,’ to Casey herself.

“Martin, I know I should have asked this before, but what is it about Ocean Falls that is going to take two weeks?”

Martin smiled, a wide smile tinged with sadness. “A friend of mine has died, and has left me his oceanside estate outside Ocean Falls.”

“Wow! Did you know him well?”

“Well enough. Chris Cairns, his name was. He was a very good friend of Angela’s and mine. His kids are our…I mean, my godchildren.”

“Did he not want to leave it to them? The house?” Casey asked, flicking a sidelong glance at him as he settled more deeply in his seat and looked forward again.

“Chris wrote to me. He said the children would either destroy the ranch or each other if he left it to them, and he was therefore leaving it to me, in the hope that I could sort it out. You know, resolve the situation.”

“Is it a big place?” she asked, focusing again on the road ahead. “‘Ranch’ makes it sound huge.”

“It isn’t really a ranch. It’s just a big house by the sea, in a couple of hundred acres or so of parkland. I doubt you could grow anything much there or keep serious livestock. Angela adored it whenever we visited Chris there. We stayed in the beautiful house, and she would spend the days riding around the estate with the godchildren, Julie and Simon. And watching the Pacific sunsets from the clifftop. So it was pretty special to us. I don’t really know what I am going to do with it.”

“How old are the kids?”

“Hmm? Oh, Julie is twenty-four, and training to be a doctor. Sam is twenty-two, and at Nebraska University. But they will be home this weekend.”

Casey had accepted it as a reason to come here, but any reason would have been good enough for her, if it got Martin out of the house.

It was typical of Martin that when he had persuaded the Mercedes dealership in San Diego to lease him this fabulous stick-shift car, he had spent the first day teaching her to drive stick, simply because she had expressed an interest in what it must be like to drive the big sportscar. She hadn’t had the confidence to drive them until today, on the quieter freeways north of Santa Barbara. When she’d hesitantly offered to drive this morning at the hotel, he had simply handed her the keys and held the door open for her. She compared that gentle certainty with the massive fight that had ensued when she’d asked her college boyfriend for a similar indulgence with his elderly and rusty Mustang. That relationship had not survived the “discussion” that followed. She had happily taken the keys from Martin at the hotel this morning, with the specific intention of proving that she was so much more than her father thought.

She looked across at him now. He was reasonably handsome, in an ‘eww, much too old for me’ kind of way. Fit, albeit not too skinny, with short dark hair that was showing a touch of silver at the temples, he reminded her of an old-style movie star, a Sean Connery or a Rock Hudson. Not as handsome, maybe, she supposed, but vital, in a good way. He wore sunglasses and a great cologne as if he had only just discovered them, and that always made her smile. There was nothing cool about the mighty author, in person. All the same, she was learning a lot from him, that was for sure.

There was only one really good hotel in Ocean Falls, the Excelsior, and she had booked them rooms there. As she pulled the car into the entrance to the hotel, a small deeply tanned Latino man stepped backward off the kerb, dragging a lawnmower without looking, and she slammed on the brakes. The car stopped almost immediately, and the engine almost stalled. Both of them were thrown forward violently. She looked across at Martin, who was expressionless.

“Good brakes, aren’t they? I’m impressed you didn’t stall it,” he said, his voice calm.

She smiled at him, her embarrassment melting away if he wasn’t going to be critical. As Casey pulled the car to a gentler stop outside the front entrance, the embarrassed Latino leaped to get the bags out of the trunk, summoned a bellboy for them, and offered to valet park the car. After a glance at Martin, she handed over the car keys, and went inside to check in. She came back, carrying two sets of hotel keys to where Martin was waiting. “Mine, and yours,” she said, handing him a small paper folder containing two plastic cards. “You’re on the top floor, number 801.” She turned towards the Latino, but Martin spoke suddenly, his voice firm and decided.

“Hang on a minute, Case.” He leaned forward and plucked the folder from her hand, and handed her the one she had given him. “I bet your father has booked something excessive, and I just want a simple room. If not, and they’re both the same, there is no harm done, is there?” He looked at her as a chef might study a lemon sole, prior to filleting it.

Casey went bright red. Her father had indeed told her to book him a grand suite, the best the hotel had to offer. ‘Must keep the talent happy,’ he had said. She had an ordinary room. She couldn’t put him in the lesser accommodation… Could she?

“Don’t worry. I insist,” he said, quietly, as if he had read her mind. Then, to save her any attempt at arguing, he grasped the handle of his roller bag and walked away towards the elevators, looking down at the new folder as he did so. “I’m going to see the lawyer tomorrow morning, so see you for coffee at that place you pointed out on the main street, about eleven?” he called as he entered the elevator.

Casey stared after him, unsure what to do, and now without any options anyway. That was Martin. Always one step ahead, somehow. If that wasn’t a cool trait to have, she didn’t know what was. So, now she had the suite. This was going to be a lot more fun than she had expected!

Chapter 2

“How would you feel if I put a flyer up on your board, David?” Sarah called over her shoulder. She had been down to the printer to collect the flyers for the ‘Save the Library’ activities, mainly bake sales and the Grand Gala Ball. On the way back to the café, she had asked each establishment if they would let her put up a flyer in their window. They had all been supportive, and this alone had given her hope that they might make it. At the Flour Shop, her favourite bakery and café, the huge and genial proprietor David Garratt was a good friend, and he stepped around the counter and gave her a hug after reading the flyer.

“Will you be okay, Sass?” Only David and her father called her Sass, though Sarah had no idea why. David was well over six foot and built like a pro linebacker gone to seed, and Sarah had expected at least a couple of cracked ribs as he hugged her relatively tiny frame, but he was surprisingly gentle.

“I hope so. All these activities have really got to fly for us to get to the target, but we have to give it a try. Any suggestions welcome, of course.” She could hear the brittleness in her own voice as she said it.

“Have you asked Jenny to do the catering?” David suggested. “She was head librarian there for ten years, and her wedding catering business is doing very well. She’s a brilliant cook.”

Sarah slapped her head. It had not occurred to either her or Gloria to ask Jenny McTeer for ideas, or support. “That’s a superb idea, David! I’ll ask her today. Can I have my usual large latte, please?” She waited as he made the coffee.

“It goes without saying that I can supply your bake sales,” David said as he put her cup down on the counter. “Whatever you need, no charge. I think a grand gala whatsit is beyond my skills, though.”

“Fair enough. That is still a very handsome offer. I hereby accept!” Sarah shook his hand and took her coffee to the window table she favoured.

The library might not survive this, you know, a little voice inside her head told her as she sat down. It’s a lot of money to find. Bake sales are not going to cut it. Even the Ball will be lucky to make a third of what is needed.

“Be quiet. We’ll find a way.” She whispered the words out loud, taking comfort from this small act of resistance, but she knew the subconscious voice was right. Nearly two hundred kids used their services every week or so, with the reading classes, storybook clubs and other activities, and she was not going to let them down. They needed something to break in their favour, though, and soon. They would find a way. They had to find a way.

*

A few doors down Main Street, Martin had concluded his business with the attorney for Chris Cairns’s estate. He had picked up two sets of keys, signed all the relevant papers, received copies of those and a host of other papers in a big file, and asked the attorney, Mitch Solebury, to get two appraisers to value the estate. He had hastily shut down the idea that it was for sale, telling Mitch that the appraisals were for his own tax purposes. The attorney had inveigled Martin to sign three of his own books for Mrs. Solebury, which Martin had done. Mitch had said that the Cairns’ library was extensive and valuable, and Martin could easily sell it, or maybe consider donating it to the Ocean Falls Library, just up the road. Mitch had thought it was over three thousand volumes.

Walking up the street, he reached the coffee shop, and the sight of a stack of savoury Danish in the window display had turned his feet through the door almost before his mind had caught up with the brainstem response.

“Those savoury Danish look amazing,” he said to the huge man standing behind the counter, who was laying frosting delicately on some finger buns with a piping bag. “This place smells amazing!” Behind the counter, a big silver coffee machine was gurgling asthmatically, completing some unannounced process.

“A modern invention, my friend. Can I get you one?”

Martin nodded. “Please. When you’re ready.”

While the man finished icing his buns, Martin asked what he meant by ‘a modern invention’.

“We call them Danish pastries, but the Danish themselves call them wienerbrød.”

“Vienna bread?” Martin asked, surprised.

“Well done you – that’s right. They were invented during a Danish bakers’ strike in 1850, when Austrian bakers were drafted in to cover the shortage. They brought their laminated pastry skills, and the wienerbrød was born. The USA started calling them Danish seventy-five years later, because that’s where the Americans first met them. The savoury version is barely fifteen years old.”

“Wow. I did not know any of that. Do I detect a British accent?”

“Good ear. I’ve been here for fifteen years, since I came over for a doctorate up the road at Stanford, and you’re only the fourth person to notice. Yours is unmistakable, though!”

“I’ve only been here ten years, and I want to keep mine, anyway. Could I add a small latte, please?”

“Sure. Do you write in American English or British English?” the man asked.

Martin was stunned.

“You know who I am? Have we met?”

“I’ve got you down as James Morrison, the thriller writer. Great books, by the way.”

“How do you know me?”

“Saw your picture.”

“Really? Where?” Martin was still amazed.

“Inside cover of one of your books, in 2006. Hunter-Killer, I believe it was called.”

“That was decades ago!. I must have changed since then?”

“Not so much. David Garratt. This is my caff.” David put out a hand the size of a small ham, and Martin shook it.

“James Morrison, or my real name is Martin Blackwell, if you prefer.”

While David made him the coffee and put the spinach-and-feta Danish in a small box, Martin read over the notices on the café’s cork pinboard.

“What’s happening to the library?” he asked David as he scooped up his purchases.

“County’s screwing their funding down, or something,” David replied. “I didn’t catch the whole story. You could ask the lady over there if you need to know. She works at the library.” He nodded towards the pretty brunette alone at a table at the window, her chin resting on her hands in an attitude of gloom.

“Really? What’s her name?” Martin asked.

“Sarah. Sarah Johnson,” David answered as a new customer approached for their coffee. He smiled. “She won’t bite.”

Martin considered whether he had time to ask the woman about the library. He hated library closures. Yes, he knew that high streets were under pressure from internet shopping, and the likes of the mighty Amazon had driven down book prices, counterintuitively putting a lot of bookshops out of business while making people keener to buy books, even if it was only electronically for their devices. Casey wouldn’t be there for a while yet, and they didn’t really have anything else to do today except settle in at the hotel.

Well, if she didn’t bite … He headed over to the table, his purchases in hand. He looked down and saw a slim woman, chestnut hair, probably mid-thirties, not tall, cute nose. Large, attractive brown eyes stared absently into the short space between her and the window frame. He thought she was very pretty indeed, and he was the observer, so that made her beautiful. Did she have the perfect golden ratio of phi, or whatever it was? No, probably not.

She hadn’t looked up or noticed him, so he took a moment to look properly. Her face was not quite half as long again as it was wide. Her nose was a smidgen too pointed, her skin a fraction too pale. He thought she was very beautiful, but he wouldn’t be able to get her an acting contract. If anything, she was the better for it. She even smelled nice – something citrusy, he suspected. What are you doing, you fool? he asked himself. You’re meant to be finding out about the library, not auditioning her for the movie version of Betrayal.

Martin took in the way she had folded her arms, her chin resting on her hands. Something in the set of that pretty jaw suggested that the argument with herself was not going well. Well, I’ve had enough of those to empathize. He took a step towards the table, before he’d decided to do so.

He realised that David had not said whether she was married, and he had not asked. No wedding ring, so he could take a chance on a title. He stepped closer and stood beside her table.

“Miss Johnson?”

There was no immediate reply, or even movement. He assumed she was miles away. He tried again, a little louder.

She looked up at him in surprise. “Huh? Miss Johnson? Does anyone even say Miss anymore? I’ve been ‘Muzz’ since high school,” she said, looking up at him. “You know, ‘M-s.’ But yes, I’m Miss Johnson.”

She seemed to be studying him. It didn’t matter. She probably thought he just wanted to borrow the chairs opposite, or something like that. Her name was hardly a marriage proposal.

“I wanted to ask you about the library.” He waved the Danish box toward the flyer prominently displayed on the pinboard.

Her eyes followed his, and her surprise was fairly total. Her eyebrows jumped in twin delicious arcs before her focus returned to his face.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who are you? A reporter?”

“Not at all. I’m a …” He searched for the right word. “A well-wisher.”

“Oh.” She relaxed, presumably because she could see that he was genuinely interested in the library’s travails.

‘Travails’ – that was a good word, he mused, before bringing himself under control and focusing on the woman again.

“Well, Mr Well-wisher, what do you want to know?” She indicated the chair opposite. “Have a seat.”

“I gather that the library is in trouble due to funding changes of some kind. David over there told me,” he added quickly as he sat down, seeing her face cloud.

He watched her debate internally, but briefly, whether to tell him anything. He knew he sounded very English. Like a character from Bridgerton or something, most Americans told him.

“Well, David is sort of right.” She folded her arms and leaned on them as she continued the explanation. “The local district is cutting our funding, and we will have to close if we cannot bridge the shortfall. They have told us to find seventy-five thousand dollars a year for five years. So we need a lot of money to fall from the sky, or a lot of goodwill to come along to our events. Can I sell you a ball ticket?”

“How much are they? And I’ll need two,” he replied, thinking of poor Casey.

“We haven’t worked that out yet, and I haven’t actually got the tickets to sell you, either. I was just being flippant. Sorry.”

“Well, let me know when you have actually got them, and I will take two.” He thought of Chris’s grown children and any potential partners, and added, “Make that six.”

“That was quick!” Sarah laughed. “If I keep you here for an hour or two, all my problems are solved!”

He smiled at that, as she continued.

“You don’t sound like you’re from ’round these parts. Or even this country. How do I know you’ll be here for the ball? Or even pay for the tickets?” Sarah clearly expected an explanation, judging by the raised eyebrow.

“I’m not from ‘round these parts’,” Martin said, imitating her accent so perfectly she laughed. “I’m from the UK. Cornwall, to be precise. And I’ll be here for the ball. And as for the tickets, I’m English, so my word is my bond. Have you not heard of our reputation for probity, this far from civilisation?”

Sarah smiled. “Oh, we have civilisation, Mr. …”

“Blackwell. Martin Blackwell.”

“Blackwell,” she finished. A quizzical, faraway look flitted across her eyes before she continued. “Do I know you? I feel like I should.”

He answered carefully, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you before, Miss Johnson.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, you’re wrong about the civilisation. Why, some weeks it’s standing room only at the bowling alley, and we were state champions at the horseshoe pitching last year. Not everyone disappears.”

Martin smiled, and she was clearly encouraged to carry on, which she did in an execrable English accent.

“So, are you from the Hampshire Blackwells, or the Surrey branch?”

He smiled. “The Cornish branch of the Wells family, in fact. We were Wells for generations, until my great-great-great grandmother Evadne crossed the tracks and fell for a Black man.”

She pretended offence, with her hands to her cheeks. “You can’t say that. It’s not politically correct!”

“No, of course not, I apologise. What is the right term, these days?”

“African-American.” She was definitive.

“In Cornwall? I think not.”

“Afro-Caribbean?” she suggested, clearly enjoying what she thought was his discomfiture.

“No, that’s not it, either.” He paused. “I have it!” He slapped the table. “Coal miner.”

“Oh, very funny, Mr. Blackwell. Well played.” She smiled at him to show she got the joke, and then continued smoothly.

“Anyway, I don’t believe you are really English.”

“Why not?” He was nonplussed.

“Because everyone knows that English people have terrible teeth. Like a row of mediaeval gravestones, usually. And you have nice teeth. QED.”

“Well, I’m very glad they give satisfaction, but I will let you into a little secret.”

“What’s that?” It was her turn to be surprised.

“Some of us can afford your American dentists. Mine sorted me out, as I remember, between the fourteenth green and the fifteenth tee one afternoon in North Carolina. Besides, that is a dreadfully tired stereotype. What did you mean by ‘not everybody disappears?’”

“Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, her nervous, apologetic smile suggesting she meant it. “We had a disappearance here a decade or so ago, and there’s a lady who comes into the library, looking for news. She was the disappeared woman’s sister. I thought you might have heard of that.” She smiled, a little more uncertainty showing. He smiled back to let her know he hadn’t, and wasn’t judging. It seemed he had quite taken her mind off the library, but as it was the only reason they were talking, perhaps he had better …

She beat him to the change. “What’s your real interest in the library? You can’t just be a general well-wisher.”

“Well, of course, I have a vested interest in libraries not closing, so I just wanted to see what I could do to help.”

“A vested interest?” She pounced on the expression. “What vested interest?”

He realised that she either did not know who he was or was going to pretend that she didn’t. Well, both were fine by him. He wasn’t going to enlighten her either way. He preferred to be incognito at the moment.

“I’m a…voracious reader,” he said lamely. “And I may have a valuable book collection to donate. So I need the library to be a going concern.”

“Oh, really? A voracious reader, eh? What was the last book you read?” Her eyes, beautiful though they were, were still boring into him, suspicion to the fore, as if his claim had to be interrogated. Perhaps there were hordes of people wandering around Ocean Falls pretending to be voracious readers without actually doing a lot of reading, and she was the Secret Reading Police.

“Mansfield Park.” It was true. He had reread it on the flight from Raleigh and finished it in Pasadena.

“Ah, a classic. I love Emily Brontë. What do you think the motivation of Anne Elliot was for her strange actions?”

Martin could feel his own double-take, as he saw the snare she had laid for him in five seconds flat. That was very refreshing. Very refreshing.

“In Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen? None whatsoever, as she’s not in it. In Persuasion, also by Jane Austen, on the other hand, I would say cautious self-interest …”

She came clean, flapping a hand in apology. “Okay, you got me. I was trying to trap you. I get a lot of people claiming to be big readers who have never read a book without pictures. You pass.” Her interest seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come, and the library’s problems to intrude once again on her thoughts. “Well, are you volunteering to help? You don’t happen to be in a band? We need a band for the ball. You don’t exactly look like a rock star.”

“Well, thanks for that snap assessment,” he laughed. “I’m not, but I can help, I’m sure. No band, though.” He spread his hands apologetically. “I could probably get you Van Halen?”

“No, thanks.” She laughed in her turn. “Not quite the right thing for an elegant ball, would you agree?”

“Okay, well, if you’re going to be picky!” He smiled to rob his words of any offence. “What’s with the third degree, anyway? Don’t you have everything under control?”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. No, we don’t. Why don’t we go up to the library, and I can introduce you to Gloria Williams, who runs it? Then we can work out what you can do to help. Can you cook? Or bake?” she said impishly.

“Yes.”

His response stopped her in her tracks. “Really?”

“Really. But I’m not catering your ball. No kitchen, you see.”

“Still, men who cook are … quite rare, around here.”

“Not so rare, where I come from.”

“How are you on rom-coms? Ocean Falls has a lot of spinsters who would go crazy for a man who can cook, but if he knows his rom-coms as well, you’ll be snapped up in no time. Are you a bachelor? I don’t see a wedding band.” As she said it, he could see her wonder, looking at his left hand, if his third finger did in fact carry the faintest paler strip where a wedding band might have been. Which it did, though he had not noticed until now. It still...