by David Hewson
Jacopo stared at me, incredulous. “Leo! He lives in his dreams, Lorenzo. Can’t you see? And besides, if my sister thought that was the price of her deliverance, who were you to decide otherwise?”
This question outraged me. “I am the one who loves her!”
“Hah!”
“I am the father of her child,” I said quietly.
His face reddened with fury, then he seized the mug he had poured for me and claimed it for himself. “This madness gets worse with every moment. Be gone, Lorenzo. Your presence offends me.”
“Delapole is a villain and a murderer! We must not let her near him.”
“A little late for that, lad. I have not seen her since we visited him, at your suggestion, two days ago, and listened to every order and instruction that he laid down as the price of staying outside the Doge’s clutches. Perhaps she packs his trunks for him, Lorenzo. Yes, I think that is it. She is his housemaid. For tomorrow he reveals himself as owner of the muse, and soon after we all depart for different climes, I know not where.”
My spirits sank. Such images ran through my mind. “She would not willingly give in to him...” I began to say.
“Oh, child!” He was now furious. “Your innocence is more galling and more dangerous than a thousand criminals combined! Do you still not know us, Lorenzo? Do you still not realise what we are?”
I wished to stop up my ears. I wished to be out of that room, and stood up to leave. His powerful arm dragged me down.
“You will listen even if I have to pin you down upon the floor! How do you think we fled Munich and survived when so many others perished? And did this same trick in Geneva? What separates us from all those other Hebrew families in this ghetto? Our looks? Our manners? Or our history?”
This small, dark room now seemed oppressive. Its drapes and hangings threatened to close in and stifle me.
“You are drunk, Jacopo,” I said quietly. “You should sleep, and speak again when reason has returned to your head.”
“Reason never leaves me,” he answered bitterly. “I would not dare allow it. So tell me. How do you think a woman, a fair one at that, escapes a room of soldiers come to kill her? How does a pair like us throw off our pauper’s cloak and fit ourselves out in velvet?”
“I will not hear this!”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and spat the words into my face. “You will listen to every word! What do you think I dispense on these night visits to the middle-aged ladies of the Republic? Just a potion? Or a little comfort after, bedding painted matrons? Lorenzo, we are the very picture of practicality. We’ll earn our living as best we can, in what small space you Gentiles allow. And when that doesn’t work, we’ll whore our way out of trouble and scurry for the next stop on the road. Though I had hoped this was an end of it.”
These words rang true, for all their hated resonance.
“If Rebecca sees an opportunity between the sheets with your Englishman, that is her decision. Not yours. Or mine. Necessity is a harsh mistress, Lorenzo. You heed her words or pay a hefty price.”
He had said his piece and not enjoyed it. Jacopo Levi regarded me with the sullen misery of drunkards everywhere, loathing himself as much as he loathed me.
“All of this may be true,” I answered. “But I cannot wait to hear it. I have intelligence of this man from Rome, Jacopo. He is a murderer, of the most vile kind.”
“Your fantasies are fast becoming tedious, lad,” he murmured. “Be gone. I had fancied myself a little longer in this city and resent the fact that you have changed my plans. You are a meddler and a fool and think you may excuse both by being well-meaning in your intentions. You bore me. Go. I have drinking to do.”
“Jacopo—”
“Go! Before I lose my temper and do something I’ll regret!”
So I left him there, with his black thoughts and his wine and his emptiness. The sun was almost down when I began to make my way through the streets. Night stole upon Venice. The moon’s face shone from the filmy black surface of the canals. I slipped through the darkness like a thief and raced south, to Dorsoduro and Ca’ Dario.
51
An eventful interview
HE HAD CHANGED. GIULIA MORELLI SAT NEXT TO Daniel Forster in the upper hall of the Scuola di San Rocco and tried to make sense of the situation. She had left a message on his answering machine that tantalised deliberately, holding out the promise of some kind of offer. She expected him to respond, but not so quickly or with such apparent determination. The doubt and misery which she had seen in him the previous day were now gone.
She followed his eyes and gazed at the paintings in the corner of the hall, feeling all the same that the game could still be hers. “I love this place,” she said. “I could sit here for hours. It’s as if someone painted the entire history of the world on these walls.”
“You really think that?” He seemed surprised.
“Sure. A policewoman can like paintings, Daniel. Music too. You’ll get me a ticket for the concert, won’t you?”
“I thought you didn’t take bribes.”
“True!” she laughed. “You’re very sharp today. Your eyes aren’t red. I think you’re no longer living in the bottom of a bottle of cheap rosso.”
“The wine has turned this past week,” he said obliquely. “I’ll have tickets left at the door. Just the one?”
She shrugged. “That’s all I need, Daniel. I’m a solitary sort. You’re kind.”
“It’s nothing.” His eyes seemed fixed on the painting, though it was one of the less conspicuous ones, a work she had never much noticed before.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“The room,” he lied. “Why do you really like this place?”
“As I said. Because it feels as if there is an entire world in here. All the emotions. Every story there’s ever been, for good and evil.”
His gaze stayed on the canvas in the corner.
“Tell me about that one,” she asked.
“It’s the Temptation of Christ. You haven’t noticed it before?”
She stared at Tintoretto’s two figures, refusing at first to believe him. But there was nothing else the work could be: there was Christ in darkness and doubt, and Lucifer with the rocks in his extended hand.
“No,” she said, surprised. “Not really. There are so many bigger works here. And...” Giulia Morelli paused, needing her words to be precise. “It’s odd. It is Christ who is in the shade and the Devil in the light. A handsome Devil too.”
“ ‘The Venetian Lucifer,’ Scacchi called him. He warned me that we would meet one day and I should face a choice.”
There was something important here. “Did you meet his devil?” “Perhaps,” he replied. “Perhaps I’m in his company now.”
“Ah,” she said, pleasantly impressed. “So that is why we meet here, not at Ca’ Scacchi?”
“No.” He wore an ingenuous smile and Giulia Morelli felt once more that Biagio was right: Daniel Forster was an honest man, if rather more slippery than she had first imagined. “To tell the truth, I was just tired of being in that big, empty house, waiting to hear another voice. And I love this place, as you do. As Scacchi did. These faces talk to you after a while.”
She said nothing, waiting.
“And you have, I think, something to tempt me?” he guessed. “Or so you hope, judging from your message.”
She made a noncommittal noise. “We both want the same thing, Daniel. To find whoever murdered your friends. I’ve some ideas in that regard, but no evidence. I could arraign you, of course, and try to force you to assist.”
“As you see fit,” he replied dryly. “Scacchi had little regard for the police. I should tell you that.”
“He had good reason to wish to avoid us from time to time. What else would you expect?”
He shook his head, unconvinced. “It wasn’t that. Scacchi was ambivalent about moral matters. That made it impossible for him to deal with anyone of a similar mind, and I imagine you m
ust by definition fall into that category. The law isn’t black and white here, is it?”
“Some of us try to make it that way,” she insisted.
“Perhaps. But you do Scacchi a disservice if you think he disliked the police simply out of self-interest. You served him no purpose. Since he was unable to define his own position, he relied upon the certainties of others to define it for him. That was why he liked me, I believe. Why he adopted me, almost. What he took to be my steadfastness, my relentless sincerity, allowed him a pillar he could lean on, depend upon. For a while, anyway.”
He could not stop looking at the painting. She was unable to see the emotion in his eyes.
“And he was wrong,” Daniel added firmly. “Utterly wrong. Which is why we are here.”
“We should talk about this,” she said. “At length.”
“No,” he insisted. “Like him, I have nothing to gain from you.”
“So you’ve found the woman? The housekeeper?”
She had his attention then. The two figures on the canvas were entirely forgotten.
“Come, Daniel,” she continued. “She’s not returned to Ca’ Scacchi.
You’ve no idea where she is. You need to speak to her. You need to understand why she has abandoned you.”
“That’s a personal matter,” he replied coldly. “None of your damn business.”
“I wouldn’t argue with that. Yet we can help each other here. In return for your assistance, I can point you to where she may be found.”
He stared the length of the hall, seeming to weigh her offer. “Tell me now and I’ll help you.”
“No! Do I look a fool?”
“So much for trust!”
“Oh, Daniel. Don’t work so hard at being exasperating. You’re a young man in love. It’s written all over your face. If I tell you what I know, everything else will be forgotten. My case. This concert of yours that has the whole city on the edge of their seats. Everything. Both of us might lose more than you think. Have you thought of that? She confessed , Daniel. There was a reason.”
He turned away from her and stared at the opposite wall. “She lost her head. She was mad with grief.”
Did he really believe that? She held it out as a possibility, too, much as the idea grated. “Perhaps. Neither of us knows.”
His eyes went dead. “Then you haven’t a clue where she is, or surely you would have dragged this from her. Please. No more. I’m tired of these games.”
Giulia Morelli reached into her bag and pulled out the photographs she had retrieved that morning from the files and the morgue.
“This isn’t,” she insisted, “some ‘game.’ There are three men dead now, not two. And one more, sometime before you came here, who was connected to this case, too, I believe. There’s no reason to think they will be the last. The Venetian Lucifer isn’t just some paint on canvas. He’s real. He’s here. He’s around us now. He breathes in our ears, he laughs in our faces. You see this man?”
She passed him the photograph of Rizzo from the files. It was two years old, taken the last time he had been pulled in for some minor theft on the Lido. Daniel looked at it with no perceptible interest. Giulia wasn’t fooled. He knew this face.
“Just some little crook who, from time to time, wound his way between the legs of this demon of ours,” she said, not expecting a reaction.
She handed him the second picture, taken on the pathologist’s slab the previous day. There was a black, bloody hole in Rizzo’s temple. His dead eyes stared at the camera.
“That’s what he looks like now,” she said, watching Daniel’s face.
Daniel Forster went white. She wondered if he might throw up.
“You can deal with the devil who did this. Or you can deal with me and, when it’s over, try to make your peace with Laura. If you’re still alive.”
He didn’t flinch. His eyes were back on the wall again.
Angry in spite of herself, she took hold of his chin in her hand and forced him away from the painting, forced him to look in her eyes.
“I’ve no more patience for this, Daniel. I’ve no more time. Choose now, please. And choose wisely.”
52
Striking a bargain
DANIEL SAT IN HUGO MASSITER’S APARTMENT, WATCHING his multiple reflections in the glass. It was eight in the morning. An hour later they would both walk into the press conference Daniel had demanded. At noon they would attend Scacchi’s funeral. The concert was at eight, with a party afterwards.
The previous evening Daniel had caught one of the late-night stores in Castello and, with money found in one of Paul’s jackets, bought an expensive suit in dark-blue linen, with a matching white shirt and a black silk tie. His hair was now cut in a neat, tight business crop. Massiter raised a single eyebrow.
“You look too commercial, Daniel,” he objected. “Like a broker. Not a composer.”
“I’m sorry. I’m new to this sort of thing.”
“Next time I’ll come with you and offer a little advice. If you’re finally to start thinking about what you wear, a little experience will not go amiss. Please...”
Daniel looked at Massiter’s pale-blue suit and pink shirt, thought about the impending funeral, and wondered whether to say something. Then, before he could speak, he was waved to the sofa.
“Well,” Massiter said. “Thank you for coming here first. I can’t pretend I’m not concerned, Daniel. What’s this about? Why the change of mood? What, exactly, do you intend to say?”
“Whatever you want me to say, Hugo. I thought that was the point.”
Massiter shook his head. “I don’t understand. You’ve been like a recluse ever since poor Scacchi died. Now, out of the blue, you seem suddenly recovered and can’t wait to talk to the press. I’m glad of the former, naturally, but as your principal supporter in this venture, I think I’ve the right to know what you intend to say.”
“Everything but the truth,” Daniel replied. “Isn’t that what you want to hear?”
Massiter looked at him intently. “Amy seems to think you’re troubled, Daniel. She already suspects you’re not the author of this piece and thinks you’re about to tell that to the world to salve some misplaced outbreak of conscience. Is that the case? Because if it is, I have to tell you we would both suffer from the consequences. You’re still due the balance of the arrangement I reached with Scacchi. Fifty thousand dollars. No small sum, as you appreciate, since you negotiated it. More than that, there is, I must repeat, the question of fraud. You’ve been party to a conspiracy. If you wish to turn awkward on me now, we’ll both find ourselves on the wrong end of a criminal investigation. Do you want to go to jail?”
“Of course not,” Daniel replied immediately. “Nor would I want that for you, Hugo. You’ve been kind to me. You were kind to Scacchi too.”
“It was business,” Massiter insisted. “Make no mistake about that. But pleasant business. I hope you’ve enjoyed my company as much as I have yours. I hope, too, that you have picked up a little from me. I have much to teach, Daniel. You, to be blunt, have much to learn.”
Daniel nodded. “I know. But I’m making progress, aren’t I?”
Massiter’s slate eyes darkened. “Yes,” he agreed. “I believe you are. More than I had expected, to be honest.”
“I’m flattered.”
Daniel wondered about the nearness of that other house, the one which had fascinated, and terrified, Laura so much. She had said that Massiter could, perhaps, organise a visit to Ca’ Dario to satisfy his curiosity. There was, he was beginning to realise, so much that could be gleaned from the present situation. He had been a fool to sit back and wait for the prizes to arrive, as if they were his by right.
“Don’t let me down, Daniel,” Massiter said. “Or yourself.”
He smiled into Massiter’s cold face, wondering what it had been like when Amy was here, what means he had used to seduce her, and, most of all, what power his grip still possessed.
“I wouldn’t dream o
f it, Hugo. I intend to milk today for everything I can. I’ll make you feel proud of me. Tonight you’ll walk out of that concert the hero of the hour. More so even than me, because I’ll tell them how none of this would have been possible without you. How you’re the benefactor that a true artist—which I am, naturally—requires. But there will be a price, Hugo. Beyond that which we have agreed. You must meet it. There’s no bargaining here. I shall exact it. You shall pay and smile at me all the time.”
“What?” Massiter murmured.
“After the funeral,” Daniel insisted pleasantly. “When my mind is finally settled. Then we’ll discuss it, once Scacchi’s in his grave.”
Massiter glowered, dissatisfied.
Daniel rose and said, “Now come, Hugo. The world awaits us. We mustn’t keep it waiting.”
53
A refusal and a surprise
IT WAS ALMOST TEN BY THE TIME I FOUND THE REAR entrance to Delapole’s rented mansion. The night people were about their business in the narrow alleys that led off the rio: pale faces cooing from doorways, shambling figures falling out of taverns to keep them company. I felt weak in this dark and unruly world. Delapole was a tall, powerful man. Gobbo had the twisted, muscular strength of one of those terriers they turn upon a badger’s sett, then wait and watch as he tears poor Brock to pieces. If I could only talk myself in and out again with Rebecca by my side, I should be happy. Marchese was on his way, past Padua by now, I hoped. With his help, Delapole would be locked tight away tomorrow, on the very day he hoped to be the hero of the Venetian crowds, and we would be gone from the city.
I rang the bell; a surly maid answered and ushered me into the empty kitchen. In a moment, Gobbo was there, surprised to see me. He sat down at the table and bade me join him, shrugging his shoulders as if to say: What can I do?
I refused his offer of a glass of wine. Then he said, “I thought you might have stayed in Rome a little longer, Lorenzo. On your master’s business.”
“I think I have no master anymore. You and the Englishman have seen to that.”
