Murder in Venice

by L. B. Hathaway

  Dickie shook his head, gun absolutely still. ‘It’s a lovely little story, I agree. Almost plausible. But how could I have gone in to see Bella yesterday morning? I was with my godforsaken aunt at the notary’s office! The police checked it all out.’

  Posie laughed, despite the quaking boots. ‘You want to rely on the evidence of your aunt – a soon-to-be-convicted criminal in her own right – who you probably paid to say you were together at the notary? She was seen at the relevant time shopping elsewhere! And you also want to rely on the word of a now-dead crooked lawyer? It’s not an alibi which holds much weight, is it? And why would only two of you have been at the notary’s office? Your company documents always required four signatures. You must have thought we were all pretty stupid! The police included!’

  Dickie didn’t answer, just held the gun straighter.

  ‘Don’t do it, Dickie,’ implored Alaric in a strong, resolute voice. ‘What can you gain by killing Posie?’

  Dickie didn’t even bother to smile now. ‘Actually, I gain everything. She knows it all, as it turns out. She’s quite correct about the past, about the company documents, about my foolishly high-principled sister. Even about my part in Robert Gattling’s murder…’ And there was a sickening click as he pulled the trigger, and Posie closed her eyes.

  Suddenly there was a bang, and a loud whizzing, and a thud as a bullet hit a brick wall. Turning, she saw that Max had entered the room, brandishing his Luger, aiming it at Dickie, who had now retreated to near the back of his office. Max had deliberately missed his aim, to create a distraction.

  ‘At last!’ she breathed.

  Spinning around, Alaric frowned: ‘Aren’t you the fella from the guesthouse? The watch-seller? The chap from earlier, at the Frari?’

  Max nodded but his eyes never left Dickie’s face. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Well, what are you doing here?’ Alaric persisted. ‘It’s a dashed awkward moment. As you can see. Better get the hell out, man.’

  ‘And leave you to die at the hands of this madman? Nein. No way. Besides, it’s a good moment for me, too.’

  ‘What sort of moment?’ asked Posie, not understanding.

  ‘I’m sorry I left it so late to get on up here. The Italian drugs police are crawling all over this building, but I had to let them in, and direct them, and let them do their stuff. They’ve arrested almost everyone downstairs, and seized goodness knows how many packets of the stuff. Premium grade cocaine and heroin, mostly.’

  ‘Drugs?’ Alaric stared at Dickie, who had edged his way right back to the open window, taking care to avoid tripping over Mr Ennario’s body. ‘What drugs?’

  ‘This whole set-up is about drugs,’ explained Max. His eyes swept across the room briefly, settling for a second on the silver safe with its open door, and an expression of fleeting joy flashed across his face.

  ‘I’ve been monitoring things: what has been going in and going out, and who has been doing the collecting. It’s a huge operation, mind-blowing. Most of the dope-traffic for a great many countries, England in particular, seems to come through this old sugar warehouse. London is virtually supplied by Dickie Alladice! Little did you know, Mr Boynton-Dale. You thought you were signing up to a fledgling glass company. But you were about to become a drugs baron of the highest order!’

  Posie nodded, sickened, understanding now how incongruous the brown-paper packets downstairs had seemed to her at first glance, not handled with any sort of care at all, not how glass should be transported. She also remembered Max telling her about his speciality, smuggling. She understood what he had been spying on now, day and night. Not the Romagnoli Palace itself, but the warehouse next door.

  Well, this was smuggling, wasn’t it? Of the worst kind. A business Johnny Alladice would no doubt have abhorred. He would be turning in his grave in Messines if he knew right now that his family business was connected with such an illegal, immoral venture…

  Dickie Alladice had the look of a man trapped, and he was trapped now. It was impossible that he could force himself out of the small window in the office, and even if he could, he would probably drop to his death in the alley underneath, hundreds of feet below. Posie saw a look of resignation fill his eyes and his hands closed tighter around his gun. Dickie will shoot himself.

  What other option was there left for him now?

  We’re going to get out of here, Posie found herself breathing. The police are here, outside.

  But she had misjudged the man. Dickie Alladice had obviously decided on a shoot-out. Before she could blink she heard Alaric shouting: ‘Posie! Posie, my love! Get down! Get down low on the floor!’

  And suddenly bullets were flying everywhere, and she was cowering next to the body of Roger Valentine, yet again.

  And someone was falling heavily, silently, and there was a crush of footsteps across the room, and the swinging of the door, a bang as it closed, and yet more shooting out on the metal balcony, and a volley of reverberating shots.

  Then there was a silence. Absolute silence, and a few minutes passed in nothingness.

  And then Posie heard a welcome voice, calling her own name, over and again. It was Inspector Lovelace. He came through into the office and gasped, then quickly picked Posie up in his arms. She swayed there in the protection of his embrace. She didn’t say anything, tears not far away.

  ‘It’s okay, I’m here,’ Inspector Lovelace whispered. ‘I was outside the whole time. I heard everything. Salvo wanted us to hold off, to wait outside. It was Max who went in alone. He wouldn’t listen, he thought you were in danger: which you were. But at least you’re still alive. Oh, Posie. I’m so very, very sorry.’

  Posie frowned. ‘What do you mean – “sorry”? What are you sorry about?’

  Lovelace frowned, but his sudden confusion at her questions turned to sadness, and then desolation, and weariness, and something in his face spoke to Posie and suddenly she knew.

  It was like standing at the edge of a chasm, watching the sea ravage the rocks below, knowing there was no option but to jump.

  ‘You didn’t realise, did you, Posie? Fool that I am! Let’s get out of here, shall we? Step away, Posie. And don’t look down.’

  But she had to. She had always done the opposite of what she had been told to, even as a child.

  And she looked down, and there was Alaric, sprawled right across the floor, a growing bloodstain like a flower spreading steadily across his white dress-shirt.

  She saw the body of the man she should have married today, a look of almost-peace on his face, his beautiful bronze-green eyes staring and yet seeing no more, and any love or hate or confusion he had felt about the different women in his life taken to his grave alone, a secret forever.

  Posie felt air rushing into her lungs, a desperate sense of clawing for breath.

  ‘I can’t breathe, sir. It’s too much.’

  ‘Step away, Posie.’

  And for once she did exactly as she was told.

  ****

  Thirty-One

  It was several hours later and Posie and Inspector Lovelace stood together in the Campo San Vio. They looked out over the Grand Canal, and the heavy lagoon breeze blew over them in violent gusts, salty as tears, timeless as a treasure.

  There was the promise of snow in the air.

  The last few hours had been truly terrible. First, a police boat ride out to San Zanipolo, where the hospital and morgue was situated, accompanying the Police Surgeon, who had requested that Posie formally identify Alaric’s body. Which she had done, numbly and mechanically, with Inspector Lovelace never leaving her side for a moment.

  And then a meeting at the Questura had followed, with Commissario Salvarocca briefing them on the fact that Dickie Alladice had ended up being injured, seriously, in the shoot-out at the drugs warehouse. Dickie was now also in the hospital at San Zanipolo, his life hanging in the balance, a police guard never leaving his side. Enough had been heard of his ‘confession’ that Salvarocca and Lovelace woul
d be able to put a case against him if he survived: for both the murder of Bella Alladice, and for the historical crime of poisoning Robert Gattling. If Dickie lived, he would be handed over to the British police and sent home to await trial there.

  Posie had had to know the truth: ‘Did Dickie shoot Alaric? Was it Dickie’s gun which killed him? Can’t you add that to the list of his crimes?’

  Salvarocca had shrugged gently. ‘We don’t know as yet, Miss Parker. It seems likely your fiancé was simply caught in the cross-fire; it was pretty wild in there, wasn’t it? Bodies aplenty. Whether it was your friend Max who fired the bullet or whether it was Dickie Alladice, I’m pretty certain it was a terrible accident.’

  As to the other people involved in the case, the Commissario informed Posie and Lovelace that Minnie Alladice was sitting in a cell deep in the bowels of the Questura. Posie hoped against hope that it wasn’t furnished as nicely as the one Lucy had been locked up in. Despite the evidence against Minnie for her part in the arson attack on the Palace, there was some debate as to whether she was mentally capable of being tried for her crimes. She had tried to hang herself that very afternoon with one of her flowery scarves, and since then she hadn’t been making much sense. It seemed likely as not that she would end her days in the Venetian Lunatic Asylum out on one of the far-flung islands of the marshy lagoon.

  ‘How handy,’ Posie had muttered on hearing this news. ‘And what will happen to Alladice Holdings now?’

  The Commissario had shrugged: ‘The mad and the criminally-convicted cannot run a company here in Italy. I’m sure it’s the same in England, is it not, Richard?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Lovelace nodded. ‘I presume it will be wound up, and the proceeds will follow the normal Will of the last shareholder who wasn’t mad, or convicted of a crime.’

  ‘Then that was Bella, sir. Bella’s normal Will left everything to a charity for cats.’

  ‘Lucky cats.’

  It seemed that Pietro Corsetti had evaded those searching for him, successfully fleeing the city, perhaps with the help of the Count Romagnoli, who had also disappeared.

  Lucy Christie had been released from custody at the Questura, with all charges dropped, and Max, who had successfully orchestrated the raid on the drugs warehouse almost single-handedly, had disappeared into thin air, just as the last of the warehouse workers had been rounded up. The Venetian police had hoped for some sort of written statement from Max, some concrete proof of international collaboration, but they were left empty-handed.

  On returning to Mrs Persimmon’s guesthouse for a change of clothes after the meeting at the Questura, Posie had automatically checked the upstairs laundry room for Max, but any presence of him, or any evidence of his activities over the last couple of days was already gone. Scrubbed out.

  He had left no sign or note for Posie. But why should she be surprised at that?

  She had looked for the sapphire earrings as he had instructed, out on the altana. But they had gone, too. So either he wasn’t a man of his word, or he had suddenly found a need for the jewels and grabbed them in haste. Either way it seemed to matter very little now.

  Posie felt sick.

  The couples who were criss-crossing the Campo, dressed for dinner and drinks, muffled up in their thick winter clothes, barely registered on her consciousness. Neither did the delicious smells of cooking which wafted across the square. It was past dinner time now, nine o’clock at least. But neither Posie nor Lovelace had the stomach to eat.

  ‘What now, sir?’

  The Inspector drew his coat collar up. ‘London,’ he muttered, as if reassuring himself that the place still existed. ‘Let’s get the next train. By Gad, this is a watery grave of a place and I’ll be pleased to leave it.’

  ‘It’s been a terrible case, sir,’ Posie whispered. ‘Too many deaths, and so much greed. And the whole time these ghosts from the past, reaching out and overshadowing people’s lives now. Money and love were motivating factors, of course, but it’s as if Johnny Alladice and this unsavoury Robert Gattling character have been as alive and present as any of the others, watching events unfurling over our shoulders.’

  The Inspector shrugged. ‘Sometimes in these cases with a revisiting of past crimes, that’s how it can seem. At least now there will be justice, or clarity, with regard to who actually killed Robert Gattling. And presumably Lucy will realise how Johnny really felt about her, if she goes and reads that Will at Somerset House.’

  ‘Yes, she’ll realise that, among other things.’

  ‘It’s the amount of unnecessary killing in this case which shocks me, though.’ Lovelace frowned. ‘That poor girl, Silvia Hanro, she didn’t deserve a death like that, whatever your thoughts might be towards her, Posie. The news will be breaking across London now. In all the newspapers.’

  ‘A national tragedy, sir.’

  ‘Indeed, and although less will mourn them, let’s not forget Roger Valentine and Mr Ennario, that notary fellow. And Alaric, of course: that will be a national tragedy, too, when the story breaks. Oh, Posie. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he’s dead, but nor can I believe the mess-up about the marriage…’

  Posie drew herself up. ‘It’s fine, sir. It’s something I have to face, or forget about, maybe, in due course.’

  And somewhere inside her a sharp anger burned lividly. Automatically she took off her gloves and slipped off that pink daisy of a Cartier ring which Alaric had given her a year before, and she drew it back, as if to sling it with a perfect aim into the black sticky waters of the Grand Canal.

  ‘No! I say, Posie! What on earth are you doing?’ And Lovelace was shouting, and hopping and almost grabbing at her arms, and it would have been comical but for Posie remembering the Inspector’s words about the ring being of sufficient value to see his little daughter pretty much through her life.

  Shamefaced in the torchlight, she took the Inspector’s hand and scrunched her own fist containing the ring into it.

  ‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘For Phyllis. Far better it should benefit her rather than be lying at the bottom of this muddy canal, or cast out into the lagoon somewhere on a tide.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Goodness, yes. Just make sure you sell it. I never want to see the wretched thing ever again.’

  ‘I guarantee it. And a thousand thanks, Posie. I’ll see that a lot of good comes of this.’

  They turned in the direction of the guesthouse.

  ‘Just one more night here,’ nodded Lovelace. ‘Then we’ll be off.’

  But as they drew close to Mrs Persimmon’s, they saw there were people gathered outside the open doorway. Jones was fluttering on the threshold, like an anxious butterfly uncertain of its course in a strong wind. Seeing them approach, he called out thankfully:

  ‘Ah, Miss Parker and Inspector Lovelace! You have visitors!’

  And two men, both in dark felt hats and dark black coats, turned around on the doorstep, creating sinister silhouettes. But one of them looked vaguely familiar, and drawing close Posie recognised him as the Chaplain they had met at St George’s the day before, the Reverend Blythe, who removed his hat. The other, older man, whipped off his hat, too, and bowed in her direction.

  ‘I’m Father Gregory,’ the older man explained quickly. ‘Miss Parker? I believe you dropped by the church yesterday?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Posie swallowed, tasting a bitter iron-like tang which was horribly like blood filling her mouth.

  ‘I’m afraid I was visiting some parishioners in the city who cannot attend church anymore.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Posie, unsure why the men had called.

  ‘It appears there has been some kind of mix-up, and I hoped we could put it right.’

  ‘What sort of mix-up?’

  ‘My Chaplain, Blythe here, informed you that the marriage ceremony scheduled for this morning between yourself and Mr Boynton-Dale had been cancelled, or, at least, he thought it had.’

  Posie nodded. She was aware of Lov
elace, horribly tense at her side.

  ‘Blythe here was quite correct. It had been cancelled. On Tuesday morning, early, I received a call from a woman, an English woman, who told me it was all off. When I asked who was calling she declined to give me her name, but she said she was calling on behalf of Alaric Boynton-Dale. She said she was a personal assistant of some kind. She was calling from a Venice number, at Santa Lucia Station.’

  Posie stared in the darkness at Father Gregory. What on earth was he talking about?

  ‘I asked if she was certain of her facts: and she replied she was. She said circumstances had changed, regrettably so. And therefore I crossed out the wedding entry in our church ledger. Didn’t think any more of it.’

  Lovelace was impatient. ‘So why are you here now, Father?’

  ‘Because of what happened this morning.’

  ‘This morning?’ Posie’s voice was just a whisper.

  ‘Yes. At ten-thirty. The time the marriage service was booked for originally. Flowers arrived from a local florist, red roses tied up with rosemary. A string quartet from the Accademia arrived and set themselves up. And then Mr Boynton-Dale himself appeared, very nervous he was, with Dickie Alladice as his best man, both in black tie. They had the wedding rings with them. They had brought along some notary chap, too, I presumed as a witness, although I gather the Inspector here was supposed to turn up, too? I was surprised by the fact it was all going ahead, of course, but as I had time to conduct the ceremony and the church was empty, I carried on as if nothing had happened, as if there had been no phone call. I presumed there had been some pre-wedding jitters, now smoothed over…’