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long?”
    “No. We met in person for the first time yesterday. We’d emailed several times. He was a collector of manuscripts.”
    “Manuscripts? Books?”
    “No. Musical manuscripts—the handwritten scores. And he was involved with the Chopin Museum.”
    “At Ostrogski Castle.” The inspector said this as if he’d heard of the place but never been there.
    “Yes. I had a meeting yesterday afternoon with the director of the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, and I asked Henry to brief me about him and their collection. It was about a questionable Chopin score.”
    Padlo showed no interest in this. “Tell me, please, about your meeting. In Warsaw.”
    “Well, I met Henry for coffee in the late morning at the museum, he showed me the new acquisitions in the collection. Then we returned downtown and had lunch at a café. I can’t remember where.”
    “The Frederick Restaurant.”
    That’s how Padlo found him, he supposed—an entry in Jedynak’s PDA or diary. “Yes, that was it. And then we went our separate ways. I took the train to Krakow.”
    “Did you see anyone following you or watching you at lunch?”
    “Why would someone follow us?”
    Padlo inhaled long on his cigarette. When he wasn’t puffing he lowered his hand below his desk. “Did you see anyone?” he repeated.
    “No.”
    He nodded. “Mr. Middleton, I must tell you . . . I regret I have to but it is important. Your friend was tortured before he died. I won’t go into the details, but the killer used some piano string in very unpleasant ways. He was gagged so the screams could not be heard but his right hand was uninjured, presumably so that he could write whatever this killer demanded of him. He wanted information.”
    “My God . . . ” Middleton closed his eyes briefly, recalling Henry’s showing pictures of his wife and two sons.
    “I wonder what that might be,” Padlo said. “This piano tuner was well known and well liked. He was also a very transparent man. Musician, trades-man, husband and father. There seemed to be nothing dark about his life...” A careful examination of Middleton’s face. “But perhaps the killer thought that was not the case. Perhaps the killer thought he had a second life involving more than music...” With a nod, he added, “Somewhat like you.”
    “What’re you getting at?”
    “Tell me about your other career, please.”
    “I don’t have another career. I teach music and authenticate music manuscripts.”
    “But you had another career recently.”
    “Yes, I did. But what’s that got to do with anything?”
    Padlo considered this for a moment, and said, “Because certain facts have come into alignment.”
    A cold laugh. “And what exactly does that mean?” This was the most emotional Harold Middleton usually got. He believed that you gave up your advantage when you lost control. That’s what he told himself, though he doubted that he was even capable of losing control.
    “Tell me about that career, Colonel. Do some people still call you that, ‘Colonel’?”
    “Not anymore. But why are you asking me questions you already seem to know the answers to?”
    “I know a few things. I’m curious to know more. For instance, I only know that you were connected with the ICTY and the ICCt, but not many details.”
    The UN-sanctioned International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia investigated and tried individuals for war crimes committed during the complicated and tragic fighting among the Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians and Albanian ethnic groups in the 1990s. The ICCt was the International Criminal Court, established in 2002 to try war criminals for crimes in any area of the world. Both were located in The Hague in Holland, and had been created because nations tended to quickly forget about the atrocities committed within their borders and were reluctant to find and try those who’d committed them.
    “How did you end up working for them? It seems a curious leap from your country’s army to