Part 1 (2/2)

Pigeons fluttered outside, blocking the sunlight momentarily as they roosted Cold penetrated the attic froh the spaces between the tiles

He sighed The violin felt heavy in his hand, and somehow clumsy, as if he had never picked one up before The music stand in front of him held the score of a piece by Mozart a a violin transcription, according to Stone, of a fa' froes The black notes captured between the lines of the staves were, as far as Sherlock was concerned, like a code, but it was a code he had quickly worked out a a simple substitution cipher A black blob on that line always meant a note that sounded like this a unless there was a shtly to a 'sharp', or a shtly to a 'flat' A sharp or a flat was halfway towards the note either directly above or directly below the one he was playing It was simple and easy to understand a so why couldn't he turn the writtenthat Rufus Stone could listen to without wincing?

Sherlock kneasn't progressing as quickly as Stone would have liked, and that irked him He would have liked to have been able just to pick up the instrument and play it beautifully, first time and every tiht rebelliously He re the same way about the piano that sat in his fa to work out why he couldn't play it straight away After all, the thing about a piano was its relentless logic: you pressed a key and a note came out The same key led to the same note every time All you had to do, surely, was remember which key led to which note and you should be able to play The trouble was, no ht about it, he had never been able to sit down and play the piano like his sister could a flowing and beautiful, like a rippling streas! How hard could it be?

'The proble at Sherlock, 'is that you are playing the notes, not the tune'

'That doesn't make any sense,' Sherlock responded defensively

'It hed 'The trees are not the forest The forest is all of the trees, taken together, plus the undergrowth, the animals, the birds and even the air Take all that away and you just have a load of wood a no feeling, no at come from in music?' Sherlock asked plaintively

'Not from the notes'

'But the notes are all that's on the paper!' Sherlock protested

'Then add so of your own Add some emotion'

'But how?'

Stone shook his head 'It's the saps you put in a the hesitations, the subtle es down That's where the feeling lives'

Sherlock gestured at the music on the stand 'But that's not written on there! If the composer wanted me to speed up or slon then he would have written it on the music'

'He did,' Stone pointed out, 'in Italian But that's only a guide You need to decide how you want to play thethis like an exercise in rammar You want all the evidence set out for you, and you think that your job is to put it all together Music isn't like that Music requires interpretation It requires you to put so to find the right words 'Any perforiven you the bulk, but you have to add the final ten per cent It's the difference between reading out a story and acting out a story' Seeing the forlorn expression on Sherlock's face, he went on: 'Look, have you ever seen the writer Charles dickens reading one of his own stories to an audience? Try it sometime a it's orth the cost of a ticket He does different voices for different characters, he throws hi bits and he reads it as if he's never seen it before and he's just as keen as the audience to find out what happens That is how you should play music a as if you've never heard it before' He paused and winced 'In a good way, I mean The trouble is that you playto work it out as you're going along'

That was pretty ive up?' he asked

'Never give up,' Stone rejoined fiercely 'Never Not in anything' He ran a hand through his long hair again 'Perhaps I've been going at this the wrong way Let's take a different tack All right, you approach music as if it's a problem in mathematics a well, let's look for musicians rite mathematics into their music'

'Are there any?' Sherlock asked dubiously

Stone considered for a moment 'Let's think Johann Sebastian Bach ell known for putting mathematical tricks and codes into his tunes If you look at his Musical Offering there's pieces in there which are es of themselves The first note and the last note are the same; the second note and the second froht to the middle of the piece'

'Wow' Sherlock was amazed at the audacity of the idea 'And it still works as music?'

'Oh yes Bach was a consummate composer His mathematical tricks don't detract fro that he'd finally snagged Sherlock's attention 'I'm not an expert on Bach by any means, but I understand there's another piece by him which is built around some kind of mathe soot an Italian naain, but this ti back those feelings Reers'

Sherlock raised the violin to his shoulder again, tucking it into the gap between his neck and his chin He let the fingers of his left hand find the strings at the end of the neck He could feel how hard his fingertips had becoht the bow up and held it poised above the strings

'Begin!' Stone said

Sherlock gazed at the notes on the page, but rather than trying to understand thee as a whole rather than each note as so at the wood, not the trees He remembered from a few minutes before what the notes were, then took a deep breath and started to play

The next few erstheht notes, fractionally before his brain could send his fingers a signal to tell theht notes were It was as if his body already knehat to do, freeing hisHe tried to think of the piece as if so it, and let his violin beco down heavily on others as if to ee without even realizing

'Bravo!' Stone cried 'Not perfect, but better You actually persuaded azed over at the slanted rays of sunlight that penetrated the loft 'Let's stop it there: on a high note, as it were Keep practising your scales, but also I want you to practise individual notes Play a sustained note in different ways a with sadness, with happiness, with anger Let the ees the note'

'I'ood with emotion,' Sherlock admitted in a quiet voice

'I am,' Stone said quietly 'Which means I can help' He placed a hand on Sherlock's shoulder for a moment and squeezed, then took it away 'Now be off with you Go and find that Ainia?' His heart quickened at the thought, but he wasn't sure if it was happiness or terror that o and see her'

'All right,' Sherlock said 'Same time tomorrow?'

'Same time tomorrow'

He threw the violin into its case and half cli, then thudded down the stairs to the ground floor Stone's landlady a a woreen eyes a ca as he ran past, but he didn't catch what it was Within seconds he was out in the crisp, cold sunlight

Farnham was as busy as it ever was: its cobbled orevery which way on various errands Sherlock paused for ain the scene a the clothes, the postures, the various packages, boxes and bags that people were carrying a and tried to make sense of it That man over there a the one with the red rash across his forehead He was clutching a piece of paper in his hand as if his life depended on it Sherlock knew that there was a doctor's surgery a few minutes' walk behind hi to pick up some medicine after his consultation The ood clothes, but unshaven and bleary-eyed, and his shoes were scuffed anda suit donated by a church parishi+oner, perhaps? And what of the woht in front of him, hand held up to push the hair from her eyes? Her hands looked older than she did a white and wrinkled, as if they had spent a long time in water A washerwoman, obviously

Was this what Rufus Stone hadthe wood instead of the trees? He wasn't looking at the people as people, but seeing their histories and their possible futures all in one go

For a mo at, and then the one and the scene collapsed into a crowd of people heading in all directions

'You all right?' a voice asked 'I thought you were goin' to pass out there for a moment'

Sherlock turned to find Matthew Arnatt a Matty a standing beside hier, but for a second Sherlock didn't see hins and indications Just for a second, and then he was Matty again a solid, dependable Matty

'Albert isn't well then,' he said, referring to the horse that Matty owned, and which pulled the narrowboat he lived on whenever he decided to change towns

'What makes you think that?' Matty asked

'There's hay in your sleeve,' Sherlock pointed out 'You've been feeding hirass wherever he happens to be tied up You wouldn't feed a horse by hand unless you orried he wasn't eating properly'