Murder in Venice

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘I thought as much. There’s no need to apologise, it’s your job. Which you do very well, by the way. Your superiors must have been happy with you, bringing down that big drugs racket?’

  ‘Ach, ja. I guess.’ He still hadn’t removed his hand from hers. She felt the warmth of his skin as it transferred heat to her, and she stored the sensation up like an image, for replaying later.

  ‘They got what they needed. The main prize was that small black notebook kept in Dickie Alladice’s safe: a detailed directory of all of his drugs contacts throughout Europe. It’s priceless, and has started off a hundred new investigations for my unit, at least. But I’m not involved in any of them. They’ve already got me working on something else.’

  ‘Something here? In England?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Something dangerous?’

  A sigh. ‘Of course it’s dangerous, Posie. My line of work is always dangerous. But so is yours. I’m so sorry about Alaric. I followed it in the newspapers, of course. The whole thing.’

  She withdrew her hand, looking off pointedly out of the window at the rolling snow-covered English countryside.

  ‘I said some things about your fiancé which may have been unkind. For which I’m sorry. I felt at the time he didn’t deserve you. It was a tragedy, what happened out there, but I’m still glad you didn’t marry him. Oh, and I have something of yours, associated with that wedding.’

  Posie looked closely at Max. He had unzipped a sort of leather money-belt worn like a holster under his navy pinstriped jacket. Something glimmered in the grey light, something startlingly blue, the sapphire earrings. He tipped the jewels into her palm in a priceless jumble.

  ‘You knew I’d return them eventually, nein? I grabbed them just in case… Thank you for their loan.’

  It was on Posie’s lips to tell him to just keep the wretched things, but then she thought of poor Phyllis Lovelace, without a mother and with a doubtful future looming up before her, and she thought of their value and what Phyllis could do with them.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, putting them swiftly into her carpet bag.

  Max was looking intently at her, and Posie saw he was actually looking at the pink glass beads he had given her. Which she wore every day.

  ‘It was a fair swap, actually,’ she smiled, twirling them casually. ‘I love them. But would you like this glass necklace back now? So that we don’t owe each other any more favours?’

  ‘Of course not. I love the fact that you love them.’

  They had pulled in at Doncaster Station now, and she looked at Max expectantly.

  ‘What is it, Posie?’

  ‘I’m expecting you to get out here, to be honest. To jump out and to run very fast. Isn’t that what spies do? Get on and off trains in the blink of an eye, never to be seen again for years on end?’

  Max laughed. ‘Ach, not always. I have the luxury of time on my side now, as it happens. With you.’

  In one deft movement he pulled down the window-blind, and then locked the carriage doors on both sides. Posie raised an eyebrow ironically. Her Christmas was looking up, that was for sure.

  ‘How long do we have?’ she asked. She was thinking of her cold, lonely flat in London. How it seemed it might not be so lonely over the rest of Christmas, after all. If Max would stay…

  ‘Well, we have the next three and a half hours, to be precise. I’ll vanish again when we get to Kings Cross. But I’m going to make sure each and every second counts if it’s the last thing I do.’

  ****

  Posie was brought back to the here and now by a sudden, earth-shattering scream. She tugged so hard at the pink glass-bead necklace that she felt the string tighten almost to breaking point.

  ‘Mama!’

  Posie hated leaving the flat: it was like leaving an old friend. It had served her so well. And it was handy for the detective agency, too. Just around the corner. But they had talked about it, her and her husband.

  It seemed the best thing, the most sensible solution: a move to a house, with a real garden, on the outskirts of London.

  Posie could still commute to work every morning. After all, the Bloomsbury flat had everything on its side but space.

  A shrill scream came again from the bedroom next door, a room which had once been Alaric’s, and which now housed two girls. Posie’s daughters. But it was only just big enough.

  ‘Mama! I NEED you!’

  ‘I’m coming!’ Posie called, sighing but smiling at the very same time.

  She knew just how lucky she was. How happiness had come her way eventually, but that it had always been a far from certain goal. She looked around again briefly. Most of the pale-green walls in the living-room were bare now.

  Empty but for one dark red, half-moon mask, bought in Venice years before, a cheap throwaway souvenir which had meant nothing at the time.

  A mask which had been pinned to the wall ever since, taking centre-stage.

  ****

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  Historical Note

  All of the characters in this book are fictional, unless specifically mentioned below. However, timings, general political events, weather conditions and places (and descriptions of places) are historically accurate to the best of my knowledge.

  For simplicity’s sake I have used the anglicized forms of the Italian place-names (which are mentioned frequently) in this book: so Venezia is ‘Venice’, San Marco’s is ‘St Mark’s’, Palazzo is ‘Palace’, ‘Piazza’ is ‘Square’ and so on.

  As acknowledged in the ‘Further Reading’ section, I found Jan Morris’s book Venice (Faber & Faber, Third Edition, October 2004) both fascinating and indispensable when doing the research for this novel. Neither historical guide nor history book, it is a combination of both (with a heavy dose of personal opinion and experience sprinkled throughout), and I have used the book as a resource alongside my own travel-notes and other research. Where I have drawn on details from Jan Morris’s Venice, I credit them below.

  Please note that when characters speak of the ‘Great War’ in this book they are referring to the war of 1914–1918, and in reality the expression would not have come into use until much later.

  As ever, both Posie’s work address in London (Grape Street, Bloomsbury, WC1) and her home address round the corner (Museum Chambers, WC1) are both very real, although you might have to do a bit of imagining to find her there.

  1. (Prologue) November 1923 was famously a freezing cold month in England, although it had started off wet (especially on the 12th and 13th of the month, when there was widespread flooding). By the end of the month much of the country was experiencing snowfalls and freezing temperatures, with the south-east experiencing particularly bad snow. I am unaware if train lines were affected, but it seems more than likely they were.

  2. (Prologue) When I refer to Posie getting the Orient Express to Venice, what I actually mean is the Simplon Orient Express. The timetable and train times referred to here are based on a later (real-life) Orient Express timetable (London–Venice) from the 19
30s, as I could not obtain accurate enough 1920s timings.

  3. (Prologue) The Bystander magazine was in print in 1923 but the cover featuring the (fictional) movie star Silvia Hanro in Constantinople is a fancy of my own.

  4. (Prologue) When ‘Constantinople’ in Turkey is referred to, this is Istanbul.

  5. (Chapter One) I have invented the fact that you could only buy Mughal cigarettes at Venice Santa Lucia Station. You could probably buy them in a vast number of places as they were cheap and popular and many people smoked them as a ‘workaday’ cigarette.

  6. (General) Venice was often referred to as the ‘Serenissima’ (the ‘Beautiful’) and the title dates from when she was a republic.

  7. (General and Chapter Two) It is not possible to go into the full history of fascism and Benito Mussolini (‘Il Duce’) in this book, nor would I wish to. It is merely part of the general historical backdrop. Save to say, as mentioned here, Mussolini came into actual power in Italy in October 1922 and remained (a popular) leader until the end of the Second World War. It is important to remember that Italian fascism had a character all of its own and that, of course, not all, or even many, Italians were fascists themselves. For more, see the ‘Further Reading’ section.

  8. (Chapter Two) The Accademia Bridge as pointed out by Commissario Salvarocca to Posie was indeed a flat iron construction at the time of this novel. It was replaced in the 1930s by the now-famous wooden bridge we know today. (This reference is from Jan Morris’s Venice.)

  9. (Chapter Two) The English Guesthouse on the Campo San Vio (facing the Grand Canal) belonging to Mrs Persimmon is fictional, although since the late nineteenth century it was not uncommon to find English guesthouses (usually with some Church of England connection) in most major Italian towns and cities on the English tourist trail (begun by people making the ‘grand tour’). Please note however that the English church of St George on the Campo San Vio (positioned in this novel next to the fictional guesthouse) is real, and services take place every Sunday morning.

  10. (Chapter Two) The Venetian Palace of the Romagnoli family on the Grand Canal is a confection of my own. I have taken the liberty of placing it opposite the real-life Campo San Vio, a block down from the Accademia Bridge. The Romagnoli family, and the Corsetti family, are also both completely fictional.

  11. (Chapter Two and General) As mentioned by Commissario Salvarocca to Posie, the ‘Festa della Madonna della Salute’ is celebrated on 21st November each year in Venice at the Salute Church. It is a thanksgiving which marks the end of plague in Venice in the seventeenth century. From Punta della Dogana to Santa Maria del Giglio, a makeshift wooden bridge is constructed allowing pilgrims and party-goers to pass across to the church more easily. A Mass is celebrated every hour in the Salute Church, with the main Mass being celebrated at ten o’clock at night of the 21st.

  12. (Chapter Three) The novel by Dorothy L. Sayers referred to here (and in the Prologue) had indeed just come out at the time this novel is set.

  13. (Chapter Four) The Palazzo Corner referred to by Lucy is across the Grand Canal from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. It really was the city’s official pawnshop from 1834–1971. (This reference is from Jan Morris’s Venice.)

  14. (Chapter Four) The legend referred to by Lucy Christie, ‘The Mistletoe Bride’ is wholly English in origin and has nothing to do with Venice. For a more modern (and creepy) take on the sorry tale see Kate Moss’s version in her collection of short stories: The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales (Orion, 2013).

  15. (Chapter Five) The solicitor’s firm of Pring and Proudfoot on Bedford Row in London is fictional.

  16. (Chapter Five) The British League for Neglected Cats as mentioned by Bella Alladice is and was fictional.

  17. (Chapter Eight) I owe the reference to the altana (the high-up, hidden, decked balcony where in the days of Casanova Venetian women would sit out in the sun, in private, attempting to bleach their hair blonde) in a Venetian house or Palace to Jan Morris’s Venice.

  18. (Chapter Eight) For Posie’s work as an ambulance driver during the Great War, as mentioned here by way of background, see the fourth Posie Parker Mystery, The Vanishing of Dr Winter.

  19. (Chapter Eight) Max refers to Erich von Ludendorff when describing his past. Von Ludendorff was a real-life German General (1865–1937) who was appointed Quartermaster General in 1916, effectively running the German decision-making in World War I alongside his immediate superior, Paul Von Hindenberg.

  20. (Chapter Eight) The question of spies, and the formation of the secret services MI5 and MI6 in England after the Great War is discussed in the Historical Note to the third Posie Parker Mystery, Murder at Maypole Manor, where we first encounter Max.

  21. (Chapter Nine) As Lucy points out, the ten-centuries-old Bell Tower or Campanile of St Mark’s Cathedral did indeed collapse in 1902. It was rebuilt ten years later; an exact copy of its predecessor, and the original gold weather-vane in the shape of an angel (which survived the 1902 collapse complete) was re-used. (This reference is from Jan Morris’s Venice.)

  22. (Chapter Nine) G. Pagan can be found at 54, St Mark’s Square. I, like Posie, have found it to sell lovely things.

  23. (Chapter Nine) Café Florian is situated on St Mark’s Square and is well worth a visit. As mentioned in the story, it can indeed boast of being the oldest surviving café and coffeehouse in the world, dating from 1720; a central hot-spot for witnessing Venice’s unfolding and often turbulent history through the ages. See: https://www.caffeflorian.com

  24. (Chapter Sixteen) The reference to Venetian cuisine including the boiled seagull and oysters is taken from Jan Morris’s Venice, who quotes the original reference as being mentioned in the contemporary Herr Baedeker’s guide.

  25. (Chapter Seventeen) The Robert Gattling case or ‘The Ice Cream Girl Murder’ of 1912 is completely fictional.

  26. (Chapter Seventeen) The music being rehearsed at the Church of San Vidal is actually taken from a contemporary, modern programme in that very church (now deconsecrated and the current venue for wonderful evening concerts. For more, see: https://www.musicinvenice.com).

  27. (Chapter Twenty-Two) The Questura (police headquarters) where Commissario Salvarocca works (in 1923) was indeed located in the Castello, by the San Lorenzo Canal. Nowadays the Venice main Questura has moved to an out-of-town location, and the old Questura has become a local branch of the police force.

  28. (Chapter Twenty-Three) The Frari Church is of course real, although the Mass I describe as taking place at seven o’clock every morning is fictional. The triangular marble tomb in the Frari where Alaric is on an assignation is real; it is the monument to Canova.

  ****

  Acknowledgements and Further Reading

  My thanks as usual go to my whole family for their support, especially to my husband and my daughter who accompanied me on a beautiful (but freezing cold!) study tour of Venice early in 2017, before I set out on the writing of this book.

  Thank you also to Wendy Janes, Jane Dixon-Smith and to Ruth of Red Gate Arts for all your wonderful work.

  As already stated, I found Jan Morris’s book Venice (Faber & Faber, Third Edition, October 2004) quite wonderful.

  On fascism in Italy in this period see:

  1. The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (David I. Kertzer, Random House, 2014)

  2. Mussolini: A New Life (Nicholas Farrell, Endeavour Press, 2003)

  (Please note that this story is a work of fiction and does not in any way seek to replicate any of the scenarios listed in any reference books mentioned above or to draw details from them unless they are mentioned or credited in the Historical Note. Needless to say, any mistakes remaining are my own.)

  ****

  About the Author

  Cambridge-educated, British-born L.B. Hathaway writes historical fiction and contributes to a number of popular history magazines and websites. She worked as a lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn in London for almost
a decade before becoming a full-time writer. She is a lifelong fan of detective novels set in the Golden Age of Crime, and is an ardent Agatha Christie devotee.

  Her other interests, in no particular order, are: very fast downhill skiing, theatre-going, drinking strong tea, Tudor history, exploring castles and generally trying to cram as much into life as possible. She lives in Switzerland with her husband and young family.

  The Posie Parker series of cosy crime novels span the 1920s. They each combine a core central mystery, an exploration of the reckless glamour of the age and a feisty protagonist who you would love to have as your best friend.

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