Invasion of Privacy

Chapter 1

Anna Parker wished she’d paid attention to the doubts buried deep in her mind. That they’d put two fingers in each cheek and whistled. Cried foul. Screamed. Anything to have made her listen to sense. To have helped her see through the charade. For she now knew that’s all it was — an elaborate sham that had lured her to this abrupt ending.

“What will you play?” the man named William Webber had asked ten minutes before, when the three-day old illusion was still in full swing and Anna was completely oblivious. 

“Elgar’s Concerto in E-Minor,” she replied. Her voice cracked as she spoke, her nervousness sneaking past her lips, betraying the confident image she hoped to portray. She inhaled deeply, knowing from other auditions that this would help calm her nerves.

“Please begin when you are ready,” Webber said.

She sat on a lonely chair in the centre of the meeting room, her cello propped on its endpin, the neck resting reassuringly on her shoulder. Anna looked around. Desks lined the edges in a large horseshoe shape. Webber sat cross-legged at the head of the room, in front of an imposing wall-to-wall whiteboard. Overhead a huge projector was suspended from the ceiling. In one corner a sprawling fake plastic plant bestowed upon the insipid space a pretence of life. Anna glanced through the window that spanned the length of one wall. In the distance, she could just see the London Eye slowly rotating, each glass pod packed full of tourists. 

Bravely, she gave voice to her concerns. “This is an odd place to hold an audition?”

His eyes flashed briefly. Annoyance perhaps? But then he fingered his beard, offering an air of contemplation.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he smiled tightly. “But the acoustics are good enough for our purposes. Please begin.” 

Anna wasn’t sure she concurred. A meeting room in an office building wasn’t exactly designed for musical recitals. But the environment was only half of what had been bothering her. 

“From your email, I thought someone from the ROH would be here?” 

Webber paused, considering her question.

The email inviting Anna to audition for a place in the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House had arrived in her inbox three days ago. It explained that she had been selected for audition on the recommendation of Jake Symmonds, one of the viola professors at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she studied cello. Although Anna wasn’t taught by Jake she knew who he was. She briefly considered that perhaps the email was a prank by one of her four student housemates, all of whom knew it was her dream to play professionally. She dismissed this thought — surely her friends wouldn’t be so cruel. No, it was just a straightforward email with a potentially life-changing offer. 

Anna’s flattered ego soon took over, suppressing her doubts. Of course it was standard practice, she reasoned, for the Royal Opera House Orchestra to consult one of London’s leading musical conservatoires as to which of its students to audition. Of course it was normal, she convinced herself, for a viola professor she’d never met to know of her virtuosity as a cellist. Teachers discussed their students with each other all the time, didn’t they? Of course it was fair — no, more than that — it was fitting for Anna to be given the chance to fulfil her lifelong dream of playing in a professional orchestra years ahead of her peers. 

After a few minutes of consternation — or maybe it had been only a few seconds — she embraced the email for what it was: an official invitation to audition for one of the most prestigious orchestras in the country. She felt the excitement build in her and, like a dam made of matchsticks, it quickly burst. With tears cascading happily down her cheeks she jumped up and down on her mattress, screaming for joy, just as she had done one Christmas Day morning years before, when Santa had left an exquisitely laminated maple cello at the foot of her bed. 

“As I said to you in the lift on the way up, Miss Parker,” Webber responded, “I’m simply the first round. An initial screening, so to speak.”

“But —”

“Put it this way. Impress me today, and next Tuesday you’ll be in the ROH at Covent Garden for the final stage of the audition.”

Anna paused for a moment and allowed his words to sink in. She imagined herself in the orchestra pit, tuned and ready for the conductor to lift his baton, the ballet dancers waiting in the wings, the audience hushing, and finally, the curtains opening. It was a delicious image and she desperately wanted it to happen. To happen to her: the cellist who had evolved from that little girl with the best ever Christmas present. The girl who had worked so hard, first learning the basics — bowing, rhythm, and reading notes — and, in time, attempting to recreate euphonic perfection. Countless hours of solitary practice. Daily sacrifices. A childhood spent observing her school friends through the living room window playing forty-forty, kerbie and later, kiss-chase, while she practised her scales over and over, her bow movements across the strings becoming autonomic as muscle memory took over, the melodies becoming more complex and harmonious. 

Anna forced a smile onto her face. “Okay then. I’ll do my best.”

He nodded. “Whenever you’re ready, Anna.”

She took two more deep breaths, drew back the bow and launched into the concerto, her favourite piece. The music, as Elgar had planned, came slowly and hauntingly at first. Within a few bars she was lost to the stately rhythm of her part. Webber disappeared from her thoughts, even though she could see him immediately opposite her. It was as if someone else was observing him through her eyes, so lost was she in the music.

Webber began to wave his arms as if conducting her. Although his timing was slightly out, he became quite animated, his eyes closing in rapture. 

Anna, too, closed her eyes and within a few bars, had completely surrendered herself to the magnificent piece. She felt as though she was achieving a level of grace that she knew was denied her in any other aspect of her life. The bow in her right hand elegantly flew left and right over the strings. Her left hand moved up and down the fingerboard, rapidly depressing the strings, the positions fluent and clear, each note perfect. 

She reached the final crescendo with a flourish. She knew that she had never played better and that Tuesday would see her in Covent Garden. A bead of sweat trickled down her back. She opened her eyes, smiling expectantly. 

Webber was nowhere to be seen. 

She swivelled on the chair, scanning the room in panic. He was right behind her, one arm raised high, holding what looked like a large dagger, a maniacal grin spread across his face.

Uncomprehending, she asked, “What are you . . .”

Webber rapidly swung his arm downwards, twisting his wrist at the last second to cause the solid base of the dagger’s handle to strike Anna cruelly across the side of her face. Her head exploded in pain, whiteness obscuring her vision. She dropped to the floor. Her cello and bow fell from her hands, clattering on top of her, numbed notes emitting from the instrument’s strings as it fell to the floor beside her. Alongside the pain Anna instantly became nauseous, as if she’d downed too much tequila too quickly. Tears streamed from her eyes, mingling with the blood oozing from a gash on her cheek. She covered her head with her hands and crunched into a foetal position. 

The image of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, her favourite movie as a child, flickered into her mind. She saw Dorothy holding back the curtain, exposing the charlatan behind the illusion, and accusing him of being a very bad man. 

Anna forced her heavy lids to open. Her own version of a very bad man was leaning down towards her, the point of his gleaming dagger held out in front of him, the illusion he had held her in for three days now completely shattered. She glimpsed past the sharp point and into Webber’s eyes — black, lustful and full of malicious intent — and saw her death in them.

Fathoming that she had just given her final performance, yet oddly grateful to have played so perfectly, Anna felt her eyelids droop again as she allowed herself to drift towards welcome blackness.