She looked at Gabriel. “You’re free to wait here, if you like.”
“And miss your performance?” Gabriel rose to his feet and draped his coat over his arm. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“What time shall I expect you?”
“You tell me.”
“Stay for the Beethoven. It will give me a chance to change into something a bit more comfortable.” She lifted her check to be kissed. “You have my permission.”
“Somehow I’ll resist,” said Gabriel, and went out.
Alone in her dressing room, Anna laid her bow upon the strings of the Guarneri and played a G-major scale in broken thirds. “Don’t smile,” she said to the woman in the looking glass. “You never play well when you’re happy.”
* * *
The seat to which the young escort led Gabriel was in the first row, slightly to the left of Simon Rattle’s podium and not more than two meters from the spot where Anna delivered a spellbinding performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s masterpiece. At the conclusion of the final movement, the twenty-five hundred members of the audience rose to their feet and showered her with rapturous applause and shouts of “Bravo!” Only then, with a mischievous smile, did she acknowledge Gabriel’s presence.
“Better?” she mouthed.
“Much,” he replied with a smile.
He adjourned to the foyer for a glass of champagne during the interval and returned to his seat for a memorable performance of Beethoven’s stirring Seventh Symphony. By the time Sir Simon stepped from his podium, it was a few minutes after ten o’clock. Outside, there were no taxis to be had, so Gabriel set off for the Mandarin Oriental on foot. As he was crossing the Ludwigsbrücke, a Mercedes sedan drew alongside him and the rear window descended.
“You’d better get in, Herr Klemp. Otherwise, you’ll catch your death.”
Gabriel opened the door and slid into the back seat. As the car rolled forward, Anna threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his cheek.
“I thought we were meeting at your hotel,” he said.
“I got tied up backstage.”
“By whom?”
Anna laughed quietly. “I miss that sense of humor of yours.”
“But not the smell of my solvents.”
She made a face. “They were atrocious.”
“So was the sound of your endless practicing.”
“Did it really bother you?”
“Never, Anna.”
Smiling, she gazed out her window at the snow-covered streets of Munich’s Old Town. “It wouldn’t have been so terrible, you know.”
“Being married to you?”
She nodded slowly.
“It was too soon, Anna. I wasn’t ready.”
She leaned her head against Gabriel’s shoulder. “I’d watch your step, if I were you, Herr Klemp. My suite is full of vases.
And this time I won’t miss.”
16
Altstadt
And what, pray tell, is the young man’s name?”
“Gennaro.”
Anna placed a finger thoughtfully to the end of her slender nose. “I could be mistaken, but it’s possible that I had an affair with a Gennaro once myself.”
“Given your track record,” replied Gabriel, “I’d say the chances are rather good.”
They were seated at opposite ends of the couch in the sitting room of Anna’s luxurious suite, separated by a buffer zone of rich black satin. Her Guarneri violin, enclosed in its protective case, was propped on an opposing Eames chair next to her Stradivarius. A wall-mounted television flickered silently with the latest news from London. Lord Michael Radcliff, the Conservative Party treasurer who had accepted a tainted million-pound contribution from a Russian businessman, had bowed to pressure and resigned. Prime Minister Hillary Edwards, her support within the Party crumbling, was expected to announce her own resignation within days.
“A friend of yours?” asked Anna.
“Hillary Edwards? We’ve never met. But I was quite close to her predecessor, Jonathan Lancaster.”
“Is there anyone you don’t know?”
“I’ve never met the president of Russia.”
“Consider yourself fortunate.” Anna switched off the television and refilled their glasses with wine. They were drinking Grand Cru white burgundy by Joseph Drouhin. “I think we should have another bottle, don’t you?”
