The Devil's Trill Sonata (19 page)

“Probably,” Darren hedged, nodding at Amy, who was looking decidedly like Trev was telling the truth: she was holding a tissue over her nose and mouth, and looking like she had no intention of lowering it any time soon. “Wasn’t feeling too well when I got up, anyway.”

“Ah, you’ll be all right in a week,” Trev said. “You’ll wish you were dead for that week, mind!”

Darren was saved from trying to answer by the appearance of their instructor for the morning, who took one look at the assembled group and said, “Right. If anyone sneezes or coughs without their fucking hand over their face, they will be the next body for practicals. And trust me, the practical training centre is
cold
. Got it?”

Got it
, Darren thought, although in reality, he’d have made a very good corpse if practicals had been
today
.

* * * *

“All right, back in this classroom in an hour,” DS Forrester announced, glancing at her watch. She was a tall, busty woman whose engorged bosom was about the only womanly thing about her. “Peace and McKinley, a word.”

Darren and Stephen McKinley, one of the trainees who said very little to anybody else, stayed seated. Trev clapped Darren on the shoulder, muttered, “I’ll make sure someone mixes up a brew for you, mate.”

“Cheers.”

“McKinley, you need to go up to the third floor and fill out a bank details form because you missed last week’s admin crap,” DS Forrester rumbled. (She had an alarmingly deep voice.) “Do it now before the clerks sod off for their own lunch. Bugger all gets done after that.”

McKinley disappeared, and Darren rose from his seat.

“You,” DS Forrester pointed a stubby finger at him. “You’re usually quiet. Not feeling well?”

Strictly speaking, that was true. “Not really.”

“And not even a pulled face,” she grumbled. “Knew you were off. What’s up?”

Darren shrugged, and went for Trev’s helpfully provided excuse. “Think I might have caught a bug.”

“Another one,” she grunted. “Fit to drive?”

“Er. Yes.”

“Then drive. Go home,” she said. “You looked glazed-over for most of the morning, and if it’s not going in, there’s no point in you being here and infecting the rest of ‘em. This afternoon’s slides are going up on the system same as usual, you’ll be able to catch up fine there.”

Darren worked his jaw vaguely, unsure of quite what to do or say. He didn’t want to go home, really, because home had…at home, there’d be the temptation. In the kitchenette or the bathroom cabinet especially. He had a life, he had things in his life that everybody had, like painkillers and spare razor blades and knives, and those things would be…and Rachel would be at work, so there was no distraction there. Here, he was…guaranteed not to be
able
to do something.

But on the other hand, he didn’t want to be here. The last thing Darren wanted to do when he was so apathetic was be
around
people. It had taken him long enough to not hate being near Jayden when he felt off, and that was with someone who knew and who cared on a different level to his would-be colleagues. That was someone who’d loved him. He didn’t want to go to lunch and drag up a smile and try and hold conversation when he just kept…

“Wandering off, you see? That’s what I mean,” Forrester boomed. “You’re wandering off. Zoning out. You’re not in the room, and if you’re not in the room mentally, there’s no point you being here physically. Go home, go to bed, play it up into man-flu for your missus, whatever. Ring in tomorrow if you’re still under the weather.”

Which he would be, but not how Forrester meant it. He knew these moods. They
settled
. They settled hard, put down roots, and the only way he knew to lift them once they actually started sprouting leaves was…was dangerous. Terminal, in theory, though he’d failed before.

Darren jerked his thoughts off that morbid track and straightened. “Okay,” he said, and Forrester nodded. “I’ll…yeah. Go and rest up and…whatever.”

“Good,” she said. “Everything okay? In general?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm,” she said and squinted at him. “You’re a quiet one.”

Darren shrugged. “Always am,” he offered. Which was also technically true.

“Mm. G’wan. Get out of here before the rest of us have to suffer,” she said, though he was sure she wasn’t convinced. As he gathered his things and made for the door, he silently thanked whatever was up there that Jayden hadn’t come into the police too. If
Jayden
learned to scrutinise strangers like that, Darren would be
fucked
.

He made his way out of the training centre without encountering any of the other trainees, and texted Trev a vague
goin home feelin crap. no t 4 me ta m8
before getting in the car. For a moment, he simply sat there, not even putting the key in the ignition, but shook off the creeping darkness enough to rev the engine and reverse. The wheel, he knew logically, was hot—he’d parked in the sun, and this car could generate heat in January, never mind actual spring. And yet his palms didn’t react to what was normally irritating and borderline painful.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, but there was no power in it. The barrier rose, and the officer waved. Darren didn’t wave back. Suddenly, fiercely, he wanted to go home, and he floored it without caring that the officer doubtless knew the car registration, the speed limit, and had an unknown temperament about speeding crime-scene-officers-in-training. It didn’t matter. None of it fucking
mattered
.

It was half twelve. The traffic was reasonably light, and Darren secured his speeding ticket from a camera that flashed as he rampaged around the ring road. He took the turning into the estate too sharply, the driver behind him honking indignantly at the lack of indicator, and Darren still didn’t bloody fucking
care
.

The house was quiet. The landlady was watching TV in her flat; her cat was sprawled across the mat and sat up with a meow when Darren unlocked the door. In pausing to pet her and offer her the way out, he felt his mobile phone buzz in the pocket of his uniform trousers, and sat on the bottom of the stairs to fish it out and toe off his boots. The cat rubbed herself around his calves, and jumped into the newly formed lap, oblivious to his mental shivering.

It was Jayden.
Can’t wait to see you for our weekend :) I miss you and I love you and I will bring an appropriately bad gift like always xxx

Something cracked in the middle of Darren’s chest. He put the phone down on the carpet, buried a hand and most of his face into the neck of the purring cat, and tried to suppress a sob.

Tried.

“Knock-knock!”

Jayden looked up from his essay. Ella was standing in his open doorway in a classic black dress, offering a little smile, one hand still raised to knock again.

“You’re working too hard,” she said.

Easter was early this year, so the exams were nearly over and the semester drawing to a close, but Jayden had too much to do. His own exams fell in early April, and then there were coursework deadlines looming in May, along with the start of the final semester. He didn’t have time to go away early, much as he wanted to. Much as he wanted to go to Southampton and shake Darren until he was…

Until he was normal again. Because he was being quiet now, and not nearly as aggressive when Ella interrupted them, and Jayden didn’t like that. A quiet Darren—properly quiet, not even the quietly sarcastic version—was only good if he was
asleep
. Otherwise…

He shook it off. “I have to,” he said to Ella. “I have a load of work due and I haven’t finished. And the stuff I’ve finished isn’t good enough, and…”

“And doing it stressed isn’t going to help,” Ella said evenly. “Come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to unwind,” she said, floating across the room and slipping a scrap of paper into his textbook before closing it. “Just an hour, I promise. Just an hour to relax and unwind a little bit, and then I’ll let you come back and finish your work.”

Jayden sighed, massaging his temples with one hand. She had a
point
, really, he couldn’t work well when he felt so wrung-out, and he was
tired
, to the point where nothing was getting done, and…

“Okay. One hour,” he said and put down his pen.

“Good,” she said and hugged him briefly. “Come with me, then?”

“Where?”

“The classical orchestra are practising,” she said. “I, um,” she pinked, “I had a little bit of a, um…well, kind of date thing with one of the cellists and he invited me to go and watch them practice. Want to come?”

“Well, not if you’re going to be all over this…”

“No, no.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God, the date was
awful
, but I like classical music and I thought I might go and watch them anyway, see if they’re any good. And I remembered Darren’s a musician, isn’t he? So maybe you can tell me if they’re any good.”

“I don’t know much about music,” Jayden confessed, shrugging out of his hoodie. Ella eyed it distastefully, and he pulled on a nicer jacket. “I mean, I know if a violinist is okay, but that’s about it. He never played much classical piano for me.”

“It’s a shame he had to stop,” she said mildly. Jayden was relieved; he’d had enough of
why your boyfriend isn’t really quite perfect enough
, and wasn’t in the mood for diplomacy. He was under too much pressure already for that. “Do you think he’ll ever play again?”

“No.” They fell into step as they left the wing and crossed the courtyard. It was finally beginning to warm from the savage winter. “His shoulder’s too badly damaged.”

“Was he
really
stabbed?”

“…Yes,” Jayden said.

“Mm,” she hummed, leading him through a narrow corridor on the north side of the college he’d ignored until now. “I think it’s…oh, yes.”

The orchestra were already playing, and they slipped into the small auditorium as quietly as possible. Thankfully, it was suitably dark that while a couple of the musicians glanced their way, they didn’t seem to really disturb anyone, and they slid into a couple of seats near the back, Ella folding her hands tidily on her lap and wordlessly pointing out the undateable cellist.

They were good, but Jayden was instantly restless. He didn’t recognise the piece, and he didn’t know the people, and there was a violinist who looked startlingly like Darren but also startlingly
not
: he had the wrong pose, the wrong posture, the wrong way of shifting into the swoops and peaks of the bow. Jayden felt sharply out of place, in a theatre watching an orchestra that were older, farther away, and distinctly Darren-free from the one he had watched shyly as a sixteen-year-old.

And he was startled to find he
could
judge them—or at least the strings section, of which there were very few. The Darren-esque violinist wasn’t as good with the sharper changes of pitch; the cellists were, he realised after a few minutes, fractionally out of time with the rest of the orchestra. All right, it was a practice session, but the moment he noticed, it grated on him. They were off, and it was only because of Darren that he noticed at all, but…

Slowly, he shifted back in his seat, propping a knee against the back of the seat in front, and slid his phone out of his pocket. Darren’s quietness was worrying him, niggling at the back of his mind. It was hard to tell by phone, because Darren wasn’t exactly chatty in person either, but he had the disturbing feeling that this had shifted from quiet-in-general to quiet-because, and the only because that Darren ever had for being quiet like this was a mood.

Jayden fervently hoped it wasn’t a mood, because he’d always broken moods in person and never by phone, so he sent a quick,
Are you all right? You’re quiet. Miss you x
in an interlude in which a string had to be changed when it squeaked shrilly on one of the higher notes.

Ok. miss u 2
came the brief reply a second later, and Jayden knew it was a lie. He’d not been called a worrier, not been told off for fussing, not anything. Darren never stuck to the point unless it was a
the train comes in at five
or a
piss off I’m sleeping!
kind of text.

I love you
, he attempted, chewing on the corner of his lip.

Love u 2 x.

“Jayden,” Ella whispered, nudging him. He dimmed the light setting on the phone instead of switching it off as she obviously wanted. There was something
wrong
.

Seriously, Darren, are you all right? Do you want me to call you this evening?

With rach this evenin, goin out. call 2moro?

Which wasn’t a no, or a telling-off, or anything like it. This was
wrong
. There was something
wrong
, and Jayden was torn between acting normally (that had helped sometimes, but that had been in
person
) and pushing the issue (which had always been a bit hit-and-miss).

Okay,
he decided on finally.
I’ll call you tomorrow evening about eight? But if you need me, call me. Love you xxx
.

“What’s going on?” Ella whispered as the cellos hit a booming crescendo, and Jayden shrugged awkwardly as he finished the text.

“Darren,” he whispered.

“What now?” Ella asked.

“I think…” he chewed on his lip. “I think, you know, um…look, can we talk outside?”

She shrugged and nodded, her hair shimmering in the gloom like it was almost white, and they slipped out through the back door into the rear courtyard instead of the main one. Jayden let the way to the basement bar, Ella trailing behind him silently, and his phone remained resolutely quiet. Darren had decided, it seemed, not to reply.

“A large glass of house red,” he told the bartender before sighing and finally pocketing his phone. “I’m worried about Darren,” he told Ella finally. “He’s…been off lately.”

“Off how?” she asked, calling for her usual rosé, and they headed for a quiet table in the corner. Exam season meant the bar’s usual hours inverted: it was busy in the day, every table occupied by study groups drinking water and revising, and in the evening, it was deserted, everyone retreating to their rooms to get their work done. It meant that for once, it was private enough to discuss this.