He was popular with the mum market, he knew. Sales of his CD always rocketed around Mother’s Day. Would they still approve of him after this?
He sat down on a brown armless chair, then remembered the whip marks and stood abruptly again. Looking at the door he wondered if it was too late to change his mind. But the police officer had taken his name now. If she wanted to follow him up, nothing would stop her.
He imagined himself, a prisoner in the dock, found guilty and taken down to the cells while a pale-faced Lydia wept in the public gallery.
“You are crazy,” he said to himself severely. “Nobody is going to jail. You will get a caution at worst. Maybe a suspended sentence. Community service. Wearing an orange overall and cleaning junk from a canal bank. What a disgrace.”
He shivered, not reassured by his own train of thought.
The sergeant seemed to take a long time finding a colleague to talk to him, and when she returned, with a man in tow, they were immediately interrupted by the loud and self-important arrival of Karl-Heinz and Dafydd.
“You haven’t arrested him, I hope?” said Karl-Heinz, striding to the desk.
“Mr Kaspar?” frowned the policeman. “No, not yet.”
“Good, because the victim here wants to change his statement.”
The two police officers exchanged eye rolls.
“The fact is, officers,” said Dafydd anxiously, “I don’t know who hit me. Could have been this man here. Could have been my wife. I can’t be sure.”
The officer huffed, looking over the previous statements.
“So you’re saying that this wasn’t a domestic altercation between two people? More like an affray?”
“I was jealous, see, because I knew my wife had history with this man. It got a bit heated. Didn’t it, Milan?”
“Yes.” Milan blinked. “It did.”
“So you’re saying you can’t say who threw the punch, Mr ap Hughes?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And there’s no harm done, really, is there? I mean, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”
“Quite.”
“So can we turn back the clock? Scrub round all those statements and arrests and just let us sort it out between us.”
“Will that be done in a peaceful and amicable fashion?”
“Of course,” said Karl-Heinz.
“I dunno,” said the desk sergeant, once everything had been talked through and signed off and marked ‘no further action’. “Classical musicians, eh? Worse than teenagers.”
“Must be all that passion,” said her colleague. “Here, did you get that Kaspar’s autograph?”
The desk sergeant held up a leaflet about motor vehicle security, scribbled across with Milan’s flamboyant signature, and beamed.
“Mum’s going to be so excited,” she said.
Chapter Sixteen
Snow was falling lightly as the coach entered the city of Leipzig.
Vanessa kept her nose pressed gloomily against the window, avoiding all conversation with Katja by her side. She was only too aware of Ben, sitting four rows behind her across the aisle, his ears plugged and eyes shut.
He had tried to get close to her a few times—every time they had stopped for a toilet break, in fact—and on the ferry too. But she had kept her knot of friends around her, not wanting any kind of public scene.
It was cruel and heartbreaking, but she had to concentrate on the positives. Dafydd was gone. Leonard was leading the orchestra in this short tour. Things would settle down, eventually.