Venetian Vendetta: The Tremayne Mysteries Series

by Merryn Allingham

  Archie seemed deep in thought again and she sat down, waiting for him to speak. ‘Whoever followed you, couldn’t have known you would call at the Moretto place today. So it has to be someone who was already watching the house and saw you go in and come out.’

  ‘Something bad is going on and I’m convinced Marta knew. If only I could find some proof, I could take it to the police. Then at least they would investigate her death. At the moment, I’ve nothing. They would put me down as an hysterical woman.’

  Archie gave a slight shrug. It was clear that hysteria wasn’t far from his mind either, but at least he had the grace not to say it. And he was making an effort to understand.

  ‘Tell me why this Marta is so important to you.’

  ‘I know it seems bizarre. I don’t understand it either. I talked to Marta for such a short time, yet I felt she was a friend. I could sense the sadness in her and I think she wanted me to. It was as though she’d chosen me.’

  Archie’s eyebrows rose astronomically.

  ‘I know it sounds ridiculous. But she singled me out to sit next to, to talk to. She spoke about the great things she was planning to do, the way she would ensure the Moretto family would be remembered, but all the time I felt there was pain behind her words, that the great things were, I don’t know, some kind of atonement. She would have said more, I think, but she had to leave. I expected to see her that night at La Fenice, but I never got the chance.’

  ‘You’re right about the police dismissing your story. It’s all hunches, and feelings. How are you going to convince anyone it’s true?’

  ‘I’m sure it has something to do with the paintings on Dino’s yacht. If only I could have opened that crate.’

  ‘The crate could be long gone—if it really did contain paintings, and Dino and his sidekick have been selling them fraudulently.’ Archie was right. Whatever proof there might have been, was probably no more. ‘But… ’ he tapped his fingers on the console top, ‘there might just be others.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked eagerly, her face suddenly alight.

  ‘Di Maio rents a boathouse for his yacht when he’s not sailing. It stays there most of the winter or when it needs repair or repainting, but in the summer it’s virtually always in the harbour and the boathouse is empty. I played poker there once—it’s Salvatore’s little hideout. It’s just possible that if the pair of them are up to something, they might be holding stuff there.’

  ‘Can you take me?’

  ‘No. Definitely not.’

  She jumped up and rushed across to him, grabbing his arm. ‘Please. Or tell me how to find it.’

  He pushed her away. ‘Listen to me, Nancy. You have two choices. Either you ignore what you think has happened and go back to England and forget it—which is much the wisest move—or you keep digging, and if you’re right about the criminality involved, land yourself in serious trouble.’

  ‘There is no choice,’ she said dully. ‘I can’t abandon Marta. Now will you tell me how to get to this boathouse?’

  ‘You’re not getting anywhere. If you insist on knowing, I’ll be the one to go. But not until tonight. I can’t go poking around on private property in broad daylight.’

  ‘Thank you, Archie. Thank you. You’re a decent man.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that a surprise,’ he said sardonically.

  ‘I mean it, but I want to come with you. I have to. Maybe Leo will be back late from Rome and won’t know.’

  ‘That’s what I came to tell you. It’s why I was in the garden. Leo phoned and wanted to speak to you, but you’d disappeared. You weren’t anywhere in the house and I thought you might be lurking out there, though God knows why in that downpour.’

  She ignored this and asked urgently, ‘What did Leo say? Is he unwell?’

  ‘He’s fine, just a bit cheesed off. It’s the other bloke who’s unwell. The shopkeeper. The fraud team is insisting this chap is present at the meeting—no idea why—but it’s been postponed until tomorrow. It means Leo has to stay over.’

  ‘In Rome?

  ‘No, Timbuktu. I’ve booked him into a hotel for the night and he should be back tomorrow evening.’

  ‘So tonight there’s a chance I could—’

  ‘A chance I could.’

  ‘That both of us could. Please, Archie.’

  ‘If you hadn’t been followed, I wouldn’t be doing this at all,’ he warned.

  ‘You didn’t believe me until I was threatened? Is that what you’re saying?’

  He grinned. ‘Would you have believed you?’

  ‘But now?’

  ‘I still don’t buy this Marta thing, but if you’re worth following simply because you paid a call at the Moretto house, it has to mean something’s amiss.’

  He got up, collecting the tray as he did. ‘Eight o’clock this evening,’ he said tersely. ‘And wear dark clothes.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They met in the lobby. As she’d been instructed, Nancy had dressed in grey slacks and high-necked sweater while Archie had found dark trousers and a zipped jacket that looked as though it had done several trips on the Morwenna. She guessed it belonged to one of his brothers.

  ‘You’ll need another layer,’ he greeted her brusquely. ‘The rain may have stopped but the fog hasn’t. And it’s thick.’

  She climbed back up the stairs to her bedroom and hauled out a cardigan she hadn’t worn since leaving London. It wasn’t as dark-coloured as Archie had suggested, but it would have to do. When she arrived back to the lobby, he was already in the garden below, pacing up and down the gravel path. He seemed unusually on edge, and Nancy shared his misgivings. She had a hollow feeling that this evening would prove a wild goose chase, and even worse, might lead to serious trouble for them both.

  Once they were through the tall wooden gates and out into the street, she saw better what Archie had meant. The fog was a dense blanket. She could hear the canal rather than see it, hear the sad slapping of water on a tethered boat, as the slightest movement in the lagoon rustled up the narrow waterway.

  It was too far to walk to San Basilio—they hadn’t the time, Archie decided—so they headed for the vaporetto. Nancy had walked this way a dozen times before, but tonight the journey felt very different. The path they trod was ghostly, buildings on either side rising spectrally through the haze and every street deserted, mist-laden statues their only companions.

  An unexpected setback awaited them at San Zaccaria. The vaporetti operating along the Giudecca Canal had been cancelled for the night and their only option was to take a boat to Ca’ Rezzonico, the same journey Nancy had made to the university. From there, the walk to San Basilio should be little more than ten minutes or so. But even this most popular of routes had suffered disruption, the boats appearing randomly through clouds of fog, their schedules abandoned, their radar screens spinning.

  The ferry, when it arrived, was almost empty and Archie took a seat several rows away. Keeping a low profile perhaps? Or was it a wish to maintain a distance between them? She could understand if it was. Their midnight meeting, her confession of what had happened to her in London, had gone a long way to dissolving the barriers between them, and she hoped they might become friends. It would certainly help Leo if they could establish some kind of rapport. Her husband had said little, yet he must be aware of the tensions his marriage had caused. But it would always be a friendship with limits—she felt that, and she knew Archie must, too.

  She wondered what Leo was doing now. Out to dinner, she supposed, no doubt with Dino as his companion. He would be shocked if he knew what she was engaged on. More than shocked—angry. He had made it plain that she was not to interest herself any further in the Moretto affair, and here she was going directly against his wishes. Her comfort lay in the fact that he need never know. Certainly Archie would say nothing. It was more than his job was worth to have taken his employer’s wife on a burglary.

  And that’s what it was, she realised, swallowing hard. She was about to be
come a criminal, and turn Archie Jago into one, too.

  ‘Time to go.’

  Archie had stood up and was gesturing to the landing stage ahead. She peered through the window at the damp whiteness beyond, trying to decipher the name of the stop. It took her a while to make it out, but he was right, it was Ca’ Rezzonico, and she got up to join him, holding tightly to the back of the seat. But instead of the usual smooth glide, the boat slammed heavily into the dock, rocking the empty landing stage and causing Nancy to lose her balance. She fell awkwardly against Archie and for a moment felt the warmth of his body, but in a trice, he had set her primly back on her feet.

  The streets on this side of the Grand Canal were no busier than those of Castello, deserted except for stray cats sheltering where they could. Nancy’s ears seemed more than usually alert, compensating, she imagined, for her restricted vision. In the distance the clanging of a fog bell cut a path through the muffled silence and she could hear the tinkling of buoys out in the lagoon. Then the trumpeting of tugs in the Giudecca Canal and the deep boom of a ship’s siren out at sea.

  They walked along the side of a narrow canal, several streets inland from the Zattere. This was the district she had walked this very afternoon. Was that only a few hours ago? It hardly seemed possible, though the memory stayed vivid—of footsteps pursuing her, of feeling alone and hunted. Suddenly, to her right a shape emerged from the mist, ghostly in the half light, and she felt her breath catch. But it was merely a solitary gondolier. He gave them a casual wave as he crouched low on his vessel to pass beneath the squat, dark bridge.

  Archie turned to her. ‘Are you all right?’

  He must have heard her sharp intake of breath. Nancy nodded, though she couldn’t truly say she was, but the search of Dino’s boathouse was something on which she was determined. Thank goodness, though, it would be over soon and they could return to the safety of the palazzo, the cold sprawl of a house that she had once disliked but now began to feel a haven.

  They had turned left and were walking towards the lagoon. Even through the fog, she could feel the air fresher. In several minutes, they had emerged onto the Fondamente that bordered the water and would take them directly to San Basilio. Several more minutes more and they had reached the harbour itself.

  ‘The boathouse is on the other side of these warehouses,’ Archie said, his voice so low she could hardly hear him.

  A vast concrete space lay before them and she recognised the place immediately. It was where the motoscafo had dropped Leo and herself on that difficult trip to Burano, but instead of walking beside the lagoon to where the Andiamo would be moored for the night, Archie walked away from the water, following the line of warehouses until they reached a single gauge railway track. A line of trucks sat empty, waiting for their morning cargo. They crossed the track and turned a sharp left, bending round and back to the water again.

  She couldn’t fathom how they had reached the lagoon once more, but the boathouses were there in front of her, a line of red tiled roofs just visible, their wooden jetties jutting out into the water. As they drew nearer, a row of doors gleamed through the white curtain of fog. The boathouses seemed to have been freshly painted. Beside the nearest building, a boat had been tied to an iron stanchion, but otherwise the moorings were empty.

  Archie came to a halt. ‘What is it?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘I’m trying to remember which was Di Maio’s. All these boathouses look the same. It had a blue door, I think.’

  ‘They’ve been repainted,’ she pointed out.

  ‘So they have.’ He didn’t seem unduly fazed by it. ‘If my memory serves me right, Di Maio’s had a small weather vane on top. It would, of course. The man always needs to go one better.’

  She looked ahead, her eyes travelling down the line, trying to pick out the weather vane.

  ‘C’mon, we need to get closer. And walk quietly,’ he warned, ‘there are security guards who work shifts through the night.’

  That was something he hadn’t mentioned before and her nervousness increased.

  ‘There, there it is.’ They had walked past several of the boathouses, but without hesitation Archie stopped outside a blue painted door.

  ‘Blue is obviously a DiMaio favourite,’ he said, ‘but the door might be a problem.’

  The boathouse was built of brick and slatted wood, its double doors constructed of thick planks. It would take a power saw to break through them, she thought. In addition, a huge padlock sat squarely between the two doors, and a double chain ran across the entire frontage. How had she imagined it would be any different? The boathouse was bound to be locked and double locked if it contained material it should not. And they had brought no tools. But then what could they have brought that would open those impregnable doors?

  ‘How—’ she began.

  ‘There’ll be another way in. Let’s find it.’

  Archie led the way down one side of the boathouse, then round to the rear. On the third side there was a small window, high up in the wall. ‘And here it is.’

  She raised her head. ‘You’re expecting me to climb up there?’

  ‘You’ll have to if you want to look inside. Or you’ll have to trust me to do the searching.’

  She was silent, thinking it over.

  ‘I thought you wanted to be in at the kill,’ Archie prompted.

  It was an unfortunate expression, but it reminded Nancy why she was here and what she had to do. Feeling a new burst of energy, she studied the wall hard, looking for a way in which she might climb to the window. But when she turned round, Archie had vanished and she found herself surrounded by an empty whiteness. Her heart gave an unpleasant jolt. Was she now alone? Was it some kind of trap? Had Archie brought her to this deserted place only to abandon her? But she was being neurotic. Of course, he hadn’t, and before she could lose her nerve completely, he had returned carrying a small ladder.

  ‘Where did you discover that?’ It seemed an improbable find.

  ‘Careless of people, isn’t it? Leaving ladders around to help you through windows. One of the painters left it, I guess. But it will do us a treat.’

  And before she could say anything, he’d produced a sharp knife from his jacket pocket and bounded up the ladder. At the top, he slid the knife down one side of the window frame and after a few seconds was rewarded with a definite click.

  ‘Here we go.’ He pulled the window open and hauled himself on to the ledge, then swung his legs over and disappeared. Nancy heard him land on the floor below.

  ‘There’s quite a drop,’ he called quietly to her. ‘You’ll need to be careful. And’—there was a flash of light from inside the room—‘you might not want to bother. There doesn’t seem to be anything worth looking at.’

  The beam of light continued to trace an arc through the darkness. ‘What’s that you’ve got? Did you bring a torch?’ she asked.

  ‘Flashlight. Old army days—comes in useful. It sends Morse code, too, though there might not be much call for that tonight.’ He switched off the light and the boathouse sank back into darkness. ‘Are you coming or shall I call it a day?’

  ‘I’m coming,’ she said determinedly.

  The ladder was the easy bit, but pulling herself up to the window required a great deal more effort. Within minutes, though, she was sitting astride the ledge and swinging first one leg and then the other across the sill and into the boathouse.

  ‘Here.’ Archie put up his arms to catch her. He’d taken off his jacket, she saw, and now stood in shirt sleeves. It felt a little too intimate, and she hesitated, but this was no time to be shy. She dropped down and felt two strong arms encircle her, and then her feet met the floor with a very definite thud.

  Archie switched on the flashlight again. ‘As far as I can see, there’s nothing here.’ The light roved around the space, into each corner, across the earthen floor, over the ceiling joists. There was nothing. The boathouse was completely empty.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said and sounded
it. He must have seen the dismay written on her face.

  It was desperately disappointing. They had risked much in coming here: Archie, his job, and she, her marriage. If Leo ever knew… she dared not think of it. Not to mention the possibility of arrest if they were found by the security guards. And all for nothing.

  ‘Can I borrow that?’ She pointed to the flashlight.

  ‘Be my guest. But you can’t manufacture what isn’t here.’

  ‘I’ll take a walk around the perimeter, just to make sure.’

  She had reached the third side of the boathouse when she bent to pick a piece of litter from the floor. Litter was hardly helpful, but when she turned it to face the light, she saw it was a scrap of canvas.

  ‘Canvas,’ she said excitedly. Archie came over to her. ‘At least it proves that paintings have been here.’ She looked again at the scrap. Grass was visible, the tip of a bare toe.

  ‘I wonder… could this be from one of the paintings, the ones on the yacht?’

  ‘Dino acts as a fence for stolen paintings and then tears one of them into shreds?’

  Archie’s derisive tone was familiar, but she ignored it. ‘Why torn?’ she wondered aloud, and then caught sight of marks on the piece of canvas she held. ‘There’s a name.’

  She peered closely. ‘It’s the artist’s signature. Di Cosimo. Piero di Cosimo?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that if this fragment is di Cosimo’s work, the painting it comes from is worth a lot of money. He was a Renaissance artist—from Florence. Not as well known as others perhaps. He painted mythological subjects but with realistic figures. I’m not sure how many of his paintings have survived, but any one of them would fetch thousands at auction.’

  ‘So you take a pair of scissors to a painting you could sell for an immense sum of money? Or you’re so careless, you don’t worry if it’s badly damaged? I don’t think so.’

  ‘I don’t either.’

  Nancy peered down again at the scrap, bringing it up to her eyes as closely as she could. ‘Look at the brush work,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s quite rough—and the colour of the grass. It’s a green that doesn’t feel true for the Renaissance. What do you think?’