Quick on the Draw

by Susan Moody

  With some difficulty, thanks to my bruises, I lifted my arm and glanced at my watch. Five hours before Cesare was due to be standing on a bridge in Burano, carrying twenty million euros about his person.

  ‘We’re already in countdown mode for the money drop,’ said Joey.

  ‘And, please God, Sandro’s safe release.’ I frowned. ‘I’ll tell you something that’s been bothering me, and that’s why the bad guys have only demanded twenty million. A hundred would be more likely, given how loaded Sandro’s uncle and father both are. Or,’ I added, ‘are supposed to be.’

  ‘Twenty mill’s a tidy sum,’ said Joey. ‘And much easier to get hold of than a hundred.’

  ‘True.’

  Joey turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘Wish I didn’t feel so uneasy.’

  ‘Me too.’ We stared at each other, trying not to dwell on the possibility of things going disastrously wrong later that evening.

  FIFTEEN

  It was coming up to zero hour. I had travelled back to Burano, determined not to let the events of the previous evening unnerve me. I took it as an encouraging omen that the vaporetto which carried me had the name Tiepolo painted on the prow. By the time I had arrived at the grassy area of the embarcadero and started to walk to my hotel through the brightly painted streets, they were beginning to empty of overweight or camera-toting tourists, most of whom were heading for the vaporetti which would take them back to Venice. Locals, too, seemed in short supply as the dinner hour approached. Windows were beginning to glow in the colourful little houses here and there along the streets and canals.

  Across the lagoon, the light was fading behind the towers and domes of the city, sunset turning the sky a flaming red, making it appear as though the whole horizon was on fire. Flocks of pigeons wheeled around and between the spires, their wings suddenly golden each time they turned and caught the last of the sun. Back in my double bedroom, I set up watch at the window, giving myself a clear view up the calle, but sitting further back enough that I wasn’t visible to anyone walking on either side of the buildings below. I’d borrowed a pair of binoculars but, given the lack of daylight, they weren’t much help.

  Was Sandro still alive? The question pounded insistently against the shell of my skull. What had begun as a kernel of apprehension and unease was growing like a tumour, more sinister and dangerous as the minutes plodded by.

  Darkness had well and truly fallen by the time I saw the Marchese emerge from a side street and walk up the steps to the middle of the bridge and stand looking up and down the canal. He was carrying two bags, one a briefcase, the other – somewhat incongruously for such a distinguished figure – a backpack slung across his shoulders. In a soft leather blouson jacket and a pair of well-pressed tan chinos, he stood out sharply among the people still strolling around. What might happen if they realized he was transporting – as I assumed he was – twenty million euros in cash?

  Traffic up and down the narrow stretch of water was slow now, almost non-existent at this late hour. Despite the darkness, I couldn’t see how the kidnappers expected to get safely away with the ransom. Or pick up the second half of it. Burano’s main streets and rivas were too open. They couldn’t possibly not have expected the Marchese to have organized some form of surveillance, or set up watchers to keep an eye out for the people collecting the ransom, so that they could easily be identified and followed. After all their earlier precautions, it seemed very unlikely that they’d operate without taking preventative measures to minimize their risk. One obvious assumption might therefore be that they would be perfectly content with only half the ransom that they’d demanded. After all, ten million euros was still a tidy sum. The more I chewed over the possibility, the more feasible it appeared.

  And then … I leaned forward. Behind Cesare, the bulky figure of the bald man materialized like a ghost from the gloom of a narrow street running towards the canal. Like the Marchese, he started to walk slowly up the bridge and stand looking down at the reflections of the houses in the glimmering water. He was wearing a white polo shirt with an embroidered emblem on the left breast – an antlered deer, a golf club? Hard to tell from my vantage point – and beige cargo pants. I looked at them and thought idly how very handy all those pockets would be, supposing you wished to stash away wads of illegitimate cash. Ditch the briefcase, stuff the pockets and away you went.

  At which point it hit me!

  After so much obfuscation, I was suddenly prepared to bet every one of those euros that right this minute Sandro Grainger was imprisoned in the very same house where I’d been kept. And at the same time, that hint of something red caught in the swirl of rubbish at the foot of the stairs which I’d noticed as I fled the place clarified itself in my brain into one of Sandro’s charity bracelets.

  That clinched it for me.

  Now all I had to do was work out which was the right house.

  Cesare was still displaying a spurious interest in the canal, which led directly to the night-covered waters of the lagoon. I tied my hair up and shoved it under a shapeless fold-up sun hat. Wrapped a scarf round my neck. Tried to make myself as unrecognizable as possible, then made my way out of the hotel at a fair old clip, trying to retrace the steps I’d taken before menace had emerged from the shadows days earlier. It had all been so quick. I’d barely had time to register where I was before the chloroform they’d clapped over my nose and mouth had taken effect and I was out cold. I remembered only a whirring kaleidoscope of colours – rose, emerald, sapphire, ochre – and a melange of shutters, doorways, white-framed windows. It would more or less have to be in one of the side streets leading up from the canal since they could hardly have carried a semi-inert body very far without remark. And for the same reason, it surely would have to be at the end nearest the canal.

  As I crossed the bridge and approached the Marchese, I said sotto voce to his back, ‘Don’t turn round but keep an eye on me.’ Then carried on, down the steps to the riva on the other side.

  He wasn’t nearly as good at non-reaction as Joey. He started, half-turned, opened his mouth, then shut it again and turned back to lean again on the bridge. Meanwhile, I passed a green house, a sunshine-yellow wall, a forget-me-not blue frontage. Rose-coloured doors, emerald shutters, tawny-painted plaster, petunias trailing from a flat roof, bright green stucco and dark-blue window fra— I stopped. Dark blue … I retraced my steps.

  Green shutters. Ochre walls. Petunias. This had to be the corner from which I’d been abducted. The more I looked, the more certain I grew. Gazing up the street, I tried to calculate how far along it I’d gone or been half-carried before passing out. Five houses? Six? In case someone was watching out for me, I strolled nonchalantly along, stopping to admire a display of geraniums, an elaborate brass knocker on a shiny black door. Nope … despite the chloroform already curdling my brain at the time, I was pretty sure I hadn’t passed either, which narrowed my choice down to just a couple, since it hadn’t been the first two or three. Both houses had shuttered windows on the ground floor. Both looked shabbier and more rundown than their neighbours. One had a faded dark blue door; the other had some peeling paintwork round the windows.

  As inconspicuously as possible, I took in what details I could as I passed, but absolutely nothing recognizable leaped out at me. And then a light went on across the way, behind white net curtains, and I could see into a small room with a central table covered in a white lace cloth with a vase of plastic flowers placed in the centre. A woman was standing just inside the door, her hand still on the light switch as though she had come into the room after hearing unaccustomed sounds and was checking the place out. I ran across the street and banged her knocker.

  The light in the front room went out. Seconds later, she opened the door. ‘Beppo?’ I said, uncertainly, waving my arm at the row of houses behind me. ‘I’m looking for Beppo.’

  She nodded, adopting a kind of resigned grimace which made it abundantly clear that people were always looking for Beppo. ‘Number six.�
� She spoke in accented English.

  Aha … the house with the peeling paintwork. I thanked her and turned to look at the house. A light burned in a top window; otherwise the place was dark. ‘Many visitors,’ she said, still using English. ‘Many men. All days.’ She shook her head.

  Did she mean the place was a house of ill-repute, with randy men constantly banging at the door? Or did Beppo simply have a lot of friends? I nodded, as though privy to his social calendar.

  ‘You are friend?’ the woman asked.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head vehemently.

  ‘He is not good man. Much police.’

  I shrugged, like one well used to Beppo’s negative behaviour. ‘I just need to find out if he has seen my brother,’ I lied, trying to imply a brother gone or going to the bad under Beppo’s malign influence, myself the knight in shining armour come to rescue the misguided youth.

  ‘There was …’ She broke into a flood of Italian, from which I rescued enough words to grasp that a pretty young man had been glimpsed briefly by the neighbours about a week ago, not the usual sort of caller at Beppo’s premises, and that he had not been seen since.

  ‘Did he have black hair?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no. This boy was blond.’ She waved a flattened palm from side to side. ‘Dark blond. Like paintings. Titian, Tiepolo.’

  Funny how Tiepolo kept cropping up. I stared at her. Though not a believer in signs and portents, I nonetheless felt that in some complicated way this was yet another encouraging connection. It had to be meant.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘That means it can’t have been my poor brother.’ I thought of Hereward, safe in his Chelsea house, unaware of how his existence was being bandied about, and hoped all was well with him and Lena. As well as, with any luck, it would – please God – eventually be for Sandro. Had to be.

  Quickly I made my way back up to the little bridge where Cesare was still standing. The bulky bald guy had disappeared. Cesare was still there, trying hard to look as if he fitted into the scene. Luckily by now there were very few people to notice that he didn’t. I slowly walked on up, gazing soulfully into the canal as I went, as if that was what I was really interested in. I even added what I hoped was a touch of authenticity by leaning right over to scrutinize absolutely nothing in the water below us.

  When I was standing right beside him, I murmured, ‘I think I know where Sandro is being held.’

  This time, he managed not to react in any obvious way. ‘Where?’

  ‘See that row of houses, with the blue house on the corner? Three houses up, there’s one painted yellow, with green shutters and a plant hanging down. I’m fairly sure he’s there now.’ I straightened up and strolled onwards, still staring into the water as I went.

  And then, ducking out of a side street and walking towards me was Joey. ‘Hel-lo!’ he said brightly. And loudly. Presumably for the benefit of any unseen watchers. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I think I know where they’re holding Sandro,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to turn round, but looking over my shoulder, is anything going on? Can you see the Marchese?’

  ‘Can’t see anything … Oh, hang on. There he is. He’s talking on the phone. Now he’s walking over the bridge to the other side of the water and along on the other … turning up a side street … stopping by a yellow house and pulling out a map, making like he’s a tourist.’

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘Whatever helps.’

  ‘How much longer to zero hour?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘Not long. Twenty minutes tops.’

  ‘I wonder what the bad guys suspect. How close they think we are. They were obviously aware that I was here on the island.’

  ‘And probably of your connection to Sandro. In fact, I suspect that they’re fully aware of all of us – you, me, the Marchese, I mean. And also where we are at almost any given moment.’ He stared over my shoulder. Then suddenly stiffened. ‘Christ on crutches!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’re mugging him!’

  Oh my God! Had that been the plan all along? To take the money and run, rather than wait for it to be dropped into a passing boat, the boat being simply a subterfuge? Why hadn’t we at least considered it as an option? I turned so suddenly I nearly went spinning into the canal. I checked out the scene, then sprinted back across the bridge and raced to where the Marchese had by now been knocked down and was lying on the cobbles, still managing to hold on tightly to his briefcase, the backpack firmly supporting him. Despite his determination not to let go of the handle, two thugs were trying to wrest it from him. A third hovered, looking for an opening into the mêlée. I was delighted to see that he had an ugly-looking wound on his forehead and heavy plastering across his nose. He must be the guy I’d tied up before making my escape.

  A few tourists hung about, unsure of whether they should intervene. I karate-chopped the neck of the thug kneeling above Cesare, liking the graceful way he folded up on to the ground. I snatched the briefcase and cradled it against my chest while the second mugger stared uncomprehendingly at his unconscious colleague, until Joey socked the side of his head with a bunched-up fist and he too went down. I started after the third man, who was way out of luck in his attempt to escape, since two American college kids had grabbed his arms and weren’t about to let go.

  ‘We saw what happened,’ one of them said.

  ‘They knocked the old guy down and tried to snatch his stuff.’

  ‘You’re heroes,’ I told them. ‘Thank you.’

  Two policemen appeared and took over while Joey and I helped Cesare to his feet and brushed him down. At the same time, a boat zoomed down the channel and drew up in a spray of foam. Four policemen leaped across the moored vessels on to the riva and roughly manhandled the guys who’d attacked the Marchese into their craft and zipped away.

  The people still around were loving the action. One elderly woman asked me if this was a scene being shot for a movie. I told her it was. ‘Out next year,’ I said. ‘Starring Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis.’

  She looked round. ‘Where are they, then?’

  I shrugged. ‘Gotta go.’

  Four more guys appeared. Good ones. Two of them had weapons in their hand. Cesare gave them directions. A minute later, as I ran to join them, they were kicking down the door into Beppo’s house.

  ‘Please,’ I said aloud. ‘Please let Sandro be there – and alive.’

  Following Cesare’s men, I reached the fallen door and trod across it to the foot of the staircase leading to the upper part of the house. I could smell the dank air of the place as I ran upstairs, Joey close behind. The house was dark and silent, except for the sound of footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs. There was a cry of triumph from somewhere higher up and I knew immediately what it meant. My spirits lightened for the first time since the news of Sandro’s abduction.

  ‘Sandro!’ I shouted. ‘Oh, Sandro. Thank Go—’ But before I could finish my sentence I heard the sound of gunshots somewhere in the darkness above me. ‘Sandro!’ I screamed.

  Two sets of footsteps were suddenly pounding down towards me, someone was swearing, there was a tremendous thump as something fell heavily to the ground. I only had time to wonder whether it was a body before two people pushed clumsily past me. I tried to grab the sleeve of one or other before I was shoved to one side of the rough wall of the staircase, my cheek painfully connecting with the plaster. The two men – I knew they were men from the smell of stale sweat from neglected armpits and the must of unwashed clothes – carried on dashing down to the ground floor. They trampled fast and noisily across the fallen front door and were out into the street.

  I sprinted as fast as I could to the upper floor. As soon as I was at the right level, I saw a body lying on the landing. The bright hair told me at once that it was Sandro. Oh, no! God, no! Tears spilled from my eyes as I stood over him. Beautiful Sandro, with his golden eyelashes, his Pre-Raphaelite mouth, his satiny skin. I knelt down beside him. He had been gagged and blindfolded, and his ha
nds were tied together behind his back. I shook my head as my mind grappled with the horror of breaking the news of his death to his uncle and his parents. ‘Oh, Sandro …’ I said despairingly. Something dazzling and beautiful had been destroyed. For what? Greed, avarice, the transient and deceptive lure of money.

  Then from below came a full-throated roar as the Marchese yelled his nephew’s name. And as though the sound had released him from an evil spell, Sandro’s hands began to twitch and his head to turn from side to side.

  ‘Sandro!’ I tore off the blindfold, removed the gag as Cesare appeared up the flight of stairs, still shouting at the top of his voice.

  ‘Zio …’ Sandro stared up at his uncle through narrowed eyes. I wondered how long he’d been kept with a blindfold over his face. ‘Zio Cesare.’ His voice was hoarse, uncertain.

  The Marchese knelt on the other side of his nephew. He stroked his cheek then suddenly began sobbing, while one of the henchmen who’d raced up the stairs behind him produced a knife and began sawing at the ropes round Sandro’s wrists.

  I could hear sounds of altercation outside in the street. Presumably the men who’d been left to guard Sandro had now been taken into some sort of custody. But they were still only minor players, like the guys who’d been detained by the police just a few minutes earlier. So where was the boss? The big, bald baker? If indeed he was the mastermind behind this whole cruel scheme intended to intimidate, terrify and extort? Only minutes before, he’d been standing almost side by side with Cesare. Had he realized that his plan had failed and legged it?

  ‘Baldy was nearby just minutes ago,’ I said urgently to Joey. ‘Have you told the cops about him? If they telephone their pals in the city, they could probably catch him before he has a chance to escape to Sweden or wherever.’

  ‘I’m on it.’ Joey spoke in rapid Italian to one of Cesare’s men, who pulled out a cell phone and spoke even more rapidly into it.