Free Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes

freezer shut and went through to the kitchen, where he made himself a fresh mug of coffee and, at last, ate his breakfast.

IV

    On his way downstairs the old man went into the room where he had found the body, and checked that the smell had gone away. Satisfied that it had, he closed the windows. At eight fifty-nine he stood in the hallway. He looked at the second hand on his watch, and when the time came he opened the front door.
    ‘Good morning,’ said Hulda. ‘What a pleasant day.’
    He said nothing, and as she carried on he went upstairs to spend some time with the K section of a Danish–German dictionary. He had arrived at the museum with two cases, one full of clothes and the other full of dictionaries. On asking him whether he had made arrangements to have his other belongings sent on, Pavarotti’s wife was surprised to hear that these cases contained everything he owned. She had been impressed by his devotion to his continuing studies, and was not to know that the only reason he read these books was because they sent him to sleep. He was impatient to spend as many hours as possible asleep, or rather not being awake, and any language skills he acquired as he pursued this ambition were incidental.
    When he reached the kitchen he sat in a stiff-backed wooden chair, and opened the book on his knee. Krapyl. Kras. Krat. It wouldn’t be long before the proprietor and her husband arrived, but he was hoping to fit in a short nap. Kremlolog. Kremte. Kreneleret. It was not their usual visiting day. Today they would be making a special appearance, to oversee the delivery and assembly of a human skeleton. Kringle. Kringlet. Halfway through Krinkelkroge the old man fell asleep, still bolt upright and with his eyes wide open. A rattle came from deep inside him, and a long, grey finger marked the point on the page where his mind had shut down.
    When all this is over and she finds out what has been going on in her museum, Pavarotti’s wife will not be available for comment. Confined to her room, she will be unable to speak for several weeks. Every afternoon at four o’clock Liesl, Chloris, Dagmar and Swanhilde will be marched in by a nanny, and one by one they will offer their hands, and she will squeeze them, and look into their eyes, wishing she could say something, anything, to explain what had happened, why she had become this way. In spite of her condition she will offer the police her full cooperation. Every day four officers, one of them a police musicologist, will carry her to the grand piano in the corner of the room, and she will sit on the stool in her nightdress, staring straight ahead and playing C sharp minor for yes , G flat diminished 7th for no ,and giving a light flourish on the three highest keys for I don’t know . As time goes on she will begin to spell out words for them, but only if they contain letters no further into the alphabet than G . In this way the investigation will manage to elicit all the information it needs from her, and at no point will she be under suspicion.
    In her absence it is her husband who will field the interview requests from the press. The many reporters who speak to him will make note of his gentle manner, his tactful choice of words and his sense of bemusement and dismay at the events that had taken place, and without exception they will notice that he bears a close resemblance to the late tenor. Most of them, keen to make up a word count in a hurry, will mention this likeness in their copy, though one or two will be restrained enough not to refer to it, believing it to be irrelevant to the story. This high-mindedness will be for nothing, as their readers point at the article’s accompanying photograph and say to whoever is within earshot, Look at him . Look at this man. He looks just like Pavarotti. At first I thought it was Pavarotti, but it’s not. They will spend the rest of the day singing ear-splitting approximations of ‘Nessun Dorma’, and for a few weeks sales of