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    Muted Strings
    Muted Strings
    Muted Strings
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Muted Strings

    By Tarry Ionta

    ()

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    About this ebook

    An accidental discovery in the local library puts Joe Sapone on the trail of the missing Morini Stradivarius. Worth a cool four million dollars, Joe sees it as the desperate solution to his rising debts.
    In his search, he falls foul of a small group already on the trail of the stolen violin. He meets the beautiful Gaia, and becomes embroiled with the wealthy Seldo Minefeld, a crooked art dealer and trader, believed to be holding the instrument in his private collection.
    Will Joe’s fortunes change as a result of his often violent quest?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTarry Ionta
    Release dateAug 7, 2014
    ISBN9781311192226
    Muted Strings
    Author

    Tarry Ionta

    Born 1933 of Italian parentage. He served in the RAF and worked at various occupations before entering Glasgow University at thirty, to study Maths, Physics, and Astronomy. He completed one year before dropping out to become a telegraphist. Finally, completing his working life with British Telecom Finance Department. His Interests and hobbies comprise mainly of chess, and reading science fiction. He has also had a keen, practicing interest in computing and martial arts (Judo and Shotokan Karate) and music (Saxophone, Clarinet, and Piano - Over twelve years with City of Glasgow Military Band). Now retired and no longer active in those fields, he prefers to concentrate on writing. He has been writing since 1988, having written over fifty varied short stories, a few articles, novellas, novels, and a children's fantasy book. Several short stories have been published in anthologies and on the Internet. A few have also been short-listed in the WRITER'S NEWS monthly competitions. He continues to write.

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      Book preview

      Muted Strings - Tarry Ionta

      MUTED STRINGS

      by

      Tarry Ionta ©

      Copyright 2014

      E-book Smashwords edition 2014, ISBN 9781311192226

      Paperback 2014, ISBN-13: 978-1500788742

      License Notes

      This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to the owner and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

      The original images used to form the cover of this book are in the Public Domain. If anyone knows of anything to the contrary please inform the author at:

      ionta.books@outlook.com

      Chapter 1

      It stood out like a penny dreadful among leather-bound classics… Hmm. I’ve just opened my mouth—metaphorically speaking of course—and I’m already causing problems. Penny Dreadful? You know? Dime novels; cheap and lurid crime fiction; trash lit., that sort of thing. Guess I must be showing my British roots, using that term.

      In reality, the book was pretty much like the other books surrounding it; indistinguishable from the rest. And yet…? There was just something about this particular volume that almost screamed out at me, ‘Pick me up. Pick me up.’ Just one dull book among many, fitting snugly and unobtrusively between the rest. The title itself should have been enough for barely a glance, before I let my eyes pass it by. But it wasn’t to be. And had I known the chain of events that would transpire from this one chance meeting, I would have shunned it like some dreadful disease… But in retrospect, maybe not. No, definitely not.

      With a slight and unexplainable feeling of reluctance I extracted the book, in spite of my misgivings; a compulsion really, with a little voice in my head saying, ‘Ignore the compulsion; leave it alone.’

      But I didn’t. No, not me; haven’t got the sense to mind my own business.

      It looked new, with an unobtrusive brown and cream jacket that was as dull as its title—THE CORPORATE SYNDROME.

      As I flicked through the pages, reading a sentence here and a passage there, I thought to myself, why am I wasting time with it? The subject matter is of no interest to me whatsoever and—from the pristine slip on the first page where the borrowing date stamp should have been—of little interest to anyone else, either. I was about to put it back when I noticed that there was the tip of a bookmark sticking out further on in the book. I pulled out the narrow card. Either someone had been reading the book and had used it to mark their place—which seemed unlikely as the book did not appear to have been issued to anyone before—or that person had placed it there for some other reason.

      I replaced the book, suddenly aware that I was no longer curious. But the bookmark remained in my hand. It seemed to capture my interest even more than the book itself had done. It was just an ordinary looking bookmark with some fancy sort of modernistic floral pattern, which I barely looked at, then turned over. The reverse side was plain white, but whoever had placed it in the book had scribbled an address on it, 16 Park Oval East, followed by a series of six numbers, which meant absolutely nothing to me. I hadn’t even heard of Park Oval East before. As for the numbers? They could have represented anything; an account number or a date, possibly.

      Then, just as suddenly as the compulsion had come upon me, I lost all interest in the book or the bookmark. Might as well put it back, I thought, whoever put it there might come back for it, if they wanted to keep the address. I retrieved the book once again, replaced the bookmark at a random page, then tucked the book back into its niche. All interest in the incident was promptly forgotten. Or so I thought.

      Memory of the incident didn’t resurface until some two weeks later. I had just finished one of those frozen microwave meals that looked like a cross between glutinous slime and rubber, which the manufacturers generously called Goulash, and settled down to have a look at the evening paper before turning on the TV.

      Nothing unusual, I thought; the state of the economy; a number of attacks somewhere or other; another earthquake in China, etc. I don’t read papers normally, although I do like to know what goes on in the world. Usually I just skip through the news, picking out items of interest and just reading the headlines. Details don’t interest me, they’re mostly depressing. Unless, of course, there is something in the paper that particularly interests me, like the funnies, or the crossword. Nobody can accuse me of being an intellectual; no sir.

      But on this occasion some words stood out glaringly before I could move on. They seemed to force themselves on my attention. The words were Park Oval East. It didn’t register immediately, the words just seemed to stand out from the rest of the text. It took me a moment to realize where I had seen them before. The library, that was it! I suddenly remembered browsing and coming across the bookmark in… some book or other, the title escaped me at that moment.

      It was a small item tucked at the bottom of an inside page, and looked to me as though it was a filler, added just to complete the column. The heading was, BREAK-IN AT MUSIC TEACHER’S HOME. It gave information about a break-in at a music teacher’s home early that morning. Apparently nothing had been taken.

      The Police were mystified, etc. etc. I paid little attention to the details as the address quoted distracted me. It was 16 Park Oval East. And I suddenly remembered the bookmark I had

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