Chapter Thirty-seven

BRADLEY ANSWERED AND told me he wasn’t in bed, but, from the sound of his voice, he was clearly exhausted. Well, so was I. He started to ask about Dodge’s death, just to maintain the cover, but I cut him short.

‘Remember the music we spoke about? ’ I said. Of course he didn’t, he had no idea what I was talking about. ‘There was the sound of traffic, it was playing in the background—’

‘Oh yeah, I remember, ’ he said, getting with the programme.

‘What happened? ’ I asked. ‘Somebody was supposed to be drilling down, trying to identify it. ’

‘I don’t know, I haven’t heard. ’

‘Get on to it, will you? Make some calls. ’

‘Sure, ’ Bradley replied, offended by my tone, immediately getting as irritable as I was. ‘When do you need it by? ’

‘Now, ’ I replied. ‘A few hours ago would have been better. ’

Hungry as hell, I was on my third stale candy bar from the mini-bar, and sitting in the chair, staring out at the town and thinking about the woman, when the phone rang. It was Bradley, and he said that the music was pretty much a bust.

‘They’ve filtered out the noise of the New York traffic, ’ he said. The reference to New York was meaningless packaging. ‘And they’ve enhanced the music. It’s Turkish, of course. It seems it’s being played on a kaval—’

‘A what? ’ I asked.

‘A kaval. A wind instrument, like a flute apparently – seven holes on top and one underneath; they’re the melody keys. It’s a folk thing. The story is that shepherds would use it to lead their flock. ’

‘Great – we’re looking for a shepherd driving his sheep through rush-hour traffic, ’ I said.

‘Not exactly, ’ replied Bradley. ‘It’s pretty common – they say it’s very popular with folk-music groups. ’

‘A kaval, huh? What was it playing on? A CD? Live? On the radio? ’

‘After they took out the background noise and enhanced it, they lost what they call the signatures – they can’t tell. ’

‘Christ! They don’t make it easy, do they? ’

I looked across the rooftops and asked myself again: where had she been standing? Some place where you could hear traffic and music being played on a Turkish folk instrument called a kaval. Where?

‘Here’s another problem, ’ Bradley continued. ‘They can’t identify the tune either. The sample’s not very big, but nobody seems to have heard it. ’

‘That’s strange, ’ I said. ‘You’d think if it was a folk tune, and with all their experts—’

‘Yeah, I guess. ’

We were silent for a moment and, when it became clear there was nothing more to discuss, I broached another subject. ‘I’m sorry, Ben, ’ I said.

‘For what? ’

‘Being a dick. ’

‘But you’ve always been a dick, ’ he said, deadpan as always. ‘Anyway, I told our friends you were feeling the stress and starting to crack up. ’

‘Oh good, that should further my career, ’ I replied.

‘Glad to help, ’ he said. He didn’t laugh – it was Ben Bradley, after all – but I could tell from his voice that I had put things right with him, and I was thankful for that.

‘One more thing, ’ I said.

‘Sure. ’

‘Ask ’em to work out a way to send the recording, will you? Just the music, not the traffic. ’ I didn’t know why but I wanted to hear it.