The Venice conspiracy ts-1

by Michael Morley

  Castelli nods. 'We had a tip that there was a lot of gear there. Shipments of the stuff. Not just hash, but good quantities of E, maybe coke and even some H. Given the abuse record of the owner, we thought it worth a prowl. I specifically asked for Antonio because he'd done so well on the undercover job at the hospital. He was a bright boy.'

  'Was. He certainly was.' Vito drops his head. 'Had he found anything?'

  'No. At least, not that he'd had a chance to report in.' They both fall silent for a minute. Vito knows what's on his colleague's mind – Valentina. Getting over a fatal accident takes a long time. Getting over murder takes a lifetime. 'I'd best go and tell her,' he says as he rises from his seat.

  Castelli doesn't say anything, just pats him on the arm as he walks past.

  CAPITOLO XXXIX

  27 dicembre 1777 Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore Brother Tommaso Frascoli spends the day obsessing about the strange man he saw dropping things from the boat.

  Throughout lectio divina his focus constantly wanders from his scripture studies.

  What troubles him even more than being lied to is that he can't figure out where the boatman came from. Tommaso had been heading south and the stranger in the mist had come from the north. But to his knowledge there were only one or two islands within rowing distance, and he thought both were uninhabited.

  Tommaso momentarily wonders if the man was an apparition. A spectre or demon of some sort, sent to challenge him. He quickly dismisses the notion, accepting – as the abbot repeatedly tells him – that he needs to avoid flights of fancy and egocentric ponderings.

  The illegitimate child of a courtesan, all he knows about his family is what the abbot has told him. Both Tommaso and his sister were passed to the clergy soon after birth. She went into a nunnery, and he's been told that she ran away while still a novice. He does not know his father's name. His mother, Carmela Francesca Frascoli, had given the priests no verbal explanation, just what few soldi and denari she possessed, along with a note and small wooden box that she requested be handed to her child when he became a man. Tommaso has both items under his bed. He's never opened either of them.

  It's the way he deals with his abandonment. By not thinking about such things, he can trick himself into believing the absence of a mother and father doesn't hurt. God has provided all the parental guidance he's ever needed.

  Except lately. Lately he's been having doubts.

  And sometimes, when the doubting becomes unbearable, it's rowing – not praying – that seems to be the only thing that takes the pain away. Rowing hard. Rowing and rowing until his lungs feel like bursting and the boat skims like a flat stone across the surface of the dark water.

  Alone in his cell before evening prayers, Tommaso's heart is pumping as hard as any session in the monastery boat. And for good reason. Today is a special day.

  It is his birthday.

  His twenty-first.

  A fitting time to face some personal demons.

  He unwraps the tightly knotted string. Breaks the seal. Opens the box that his mother left for him and cannot believe his eyes.

  CHAPTER 41

  Present Day Palazzo Ducale, Venice A cool morning wind blows in from the Venetian lagoon, a stretch of water formed some seven thousand years ago when the Ice Age flooded the upper Adriatic coastal plain. Vito Carvalho stands by a gondolier station in the shadow of the Palazzo Ducale and stares out across the endless grey waves. He's thinking about what Umberto Castelli has just told him.

  Murder.

  Antonio Pavarotti's death was not an accident. He was murdered.

  The young lieutenant's face comes to mind. Fresh and handsome. Always smiling. Attentive eyes, the type that women notice.

  What a waste.

  What a damned awful waste.

  Vito finishes his cigarette, the second of the day, and walks towards his office. He goes slowly. He needs the time and air to think properly. His desk has been swamped with three murder cases – Monica Vidic and the two men recovered from the lagoon. Now he's got a fourth – Antonio. By way of consolation, he's got something else too – a tenuous lead, a straw to grasp at. Okay, so it's not much to go on, but what Castelli told him about Isola Mario is worth following up. Drugs are so often a factor in serious crimes.

  Other things are troubling him too. He's badly short of manpower, and his staff are close to exhaustion. Castelli had already promised him two second lieutenants from his undercover division, but before he meets them, Vito has a more testing appointment. Bang on ten a.m., Valentina Morassi breezes into her boss's office, slim fingers holding a takeaway coffee. 'Buongiorno, I have your morning medicine, Major.'

  'Grazie.' He takes the cardboard cup and waits for her to sit. Given everything that's happened lately, she looks amazing. Sure there's extra make-up to hide the puffiness beneath her eyes, but still, the girl has a strength that he can't help but admire. 'Did you hear from our ex-priest after the visit to the Salute?'

  Valentina uncaps her coffee, blows away some steam. 'No, it's my first stop right after this.'

  'Call him in. I need to speak to him here. I was watching his face yesterday – he saw something. When he looked at the blood smears, they seemed to mean something to him.'

  Vito wants to carry on talking about other aspects of the case, to discuss the strange hippy commune at Isola Mario – anything rather than break the awful news to her. He looks down at his hands. There are nicotine stains between his fingers. It's a long time since he's seen that. He rubs at the yellow, then looks up and sees Valentina staring at him. Waiting for him. There's no putting it off any longer: 'I spoke to Castelli. The team investigating the explosion of Antonio's boat no longer think it was an accident…' He studies her face for shock. Not a trace. Only the questioning stare of a professional waiting for the rest of the story. 'Forensics found particles of plastic explosive among the wreckage.'

  He watches Valentina draw breath. A slight tremble rocks her shoulders. 'I suppose you know he was working undercover on Isola Mario, the place owned by that weird internet billionaire.'

  She nods. 'What now?'

  Her bluntness throws him. 'Scusi?'

  'How will the investigation be handled? Who will head it up?'

  'I will. Major Castelli previously offered some of his officers to help and we'll have them on board very-'

  She interrupts. 'I want to work it.' Her eyes blaze. 'Let me be involved.'

  Carvalho thinks about saying no. 'You have a lot to do – the Vidic murder, bodies in the lagoon, the investigation at the church…'

  Her eyes challenge him. 'All this is linked, Major. I know it is. I feel it. Whatever team you pick will have to work across all three cases.'

  They stare at each other and share unspoken words. There's no forensic evidence to bind everything together, but Vito is sure she's right. Somehow it's all linked. He gives in. 'I've asked for a search warrant. I believe we've grounds to interview Antonio's workmates and his "employer".'

  'The billionaire?'

  'Si.' Vito doesn't look enthusiastic. 'We're police officers, we don't believe in coincidences, but tying all this together and making sense out of it is going to be a difficult task.'

  Her face hardens. 'I'm ready – very ready for any difficult task that finds Antonio's killer.'

  'Bene. But if you feel any of this starting to stress you, then you tell me.' He raises his right index finger and points paternally towards her. 'I mean it, Valentina, you must tell me if it gets too much. The last thing I want is for your work to make your life even worse than it is.'

  'It couldn't be,' she says. 'Believe me, there's no way I could feel any worse than I do right now.'

  CAPITOLO XL

  1777

  Rialto, Venezia It took three years to build the Ponte di Rialto, and some days it feels like it takes that long just to cross it.

  Today is such a day.

  Venice has become the trading gateway to the world, and it seems to Tanina Perrotta that every nation
ality on earth is simultaneously swarming over Da Ponte's famous bridge. The shop girl works on the south side of the bridge, in Gatusso's, one of the city's oldest and most respected arts and antiquities houses. Business is booming. Every day she sells paintings and curios for prices that astound her. It's hard work, and now she's longing to be on the other side of the bridge with Ermanno, the love of her life.

  At last Lauro, her genial employer, flips the sign on the front door and pulls down a shade. 'Finito. Go! Go! You've been gazing out of the window as though you were expecting the Doge himself to arrive. Is it really so tiresome working here?'

  She grabs her cloak from a hook behind a drape. 'You know I consider it a joy to work for you, signor. It is merely that I am meeting a friend and must run an errand first.'

  'Friend?' He gives her a paternal stare. 'Is this friend the Jew-boy from Buchbinder's?'

  Tanina's moon-shaped face flushes as she tugs a sandy curl of hair back behind her ear. 'You know it is. Ermanno and I have been together for nearly two years.'

  Gatusso lets out a tut.

  'He is a good man!' she protests.

  'The only good thing about him is that his rogue of a father had the sense to give him a Christian name.'

  'Signor!'

  'Tanina, you know as well as I do, if your dear parents were alive, they would forbid you from having anything to do with him.'

  Hands on hips, she gives him a challenging look. 'But, alas, they are not, and I am of an age when I can decide such matters for myself.'

  They glare at each other. Tempers simmer. Lauro Gatusso has been the bedrock of her independence; without his support she'd be jobless, homeless and probably even Ermanno-less. Ironically, it was Gatusso who brought them together. They met while he was delivering goods her boss had bought from an old Jewish merchant in the ghetto.

  'I am sorry,' Gatusso says finally. 'It's just that the boy's father is a scurrilous ruffian. A low-life. A cheat of celestial magnitude. Old Taduch deals in dubiously sourced art and his ancestors are nothing but strazzaria – filthy rag traders.'

  Tanina smiles as she edges past him to the door. Trading between the two businessmen has gone on for years – usually amicably – but their most recent deal ended badly. 'I am sorry too. You have been most kind to me, and I respect your patronage and advice. It's just…'

  He waves her away with the back of his lace-cuffed hand. 'I know, I know – it's just that you love him. Love! Love! Love!' He bundles her through the door with a smile 'Ciao, Tanina. Take good care of yourself and make sure that Jew-boy gets you home safely.'

  She gathers her skirts and hurries. It's already getting dark and cold. Artists have packed up their easels from alongside the canal and most street traders have gone. She crosses the bridge and winds her way through the backstreets. First east, then north, then back north-westerly away from the looping bend of the Canal Grande and out towards one of the northernmost islands.

  Tanina has been aware of the Jewish ghetto – the first in Europe – for as long as she can remember. Catholics have all but demonised the place. Everything Jewish is restricted. Trade, rights, status and even the movement of the people held within its vast walls are all constrained. Yet aside from the occasional clampdown, the guards generally turn a blind eye to those who treat them well, and so life goes on regardless.

  She turns into the ghetto, immediately excited by its vibrancy. The place is a cauldron of wheeling and dealing, its streets overflowing with merchants and moneylenders. Furs, cloths and carpets are trundled in and out of the warehouses. Despite the lateness of the hour, tailors, jewellers and barbers are still hard at work. Tanina almost gets bowled over by a couple of water carriers as they hurry by, having drawn a full load from their master's private well. She likes it here. Likes the energy, the danger, the feeling of being somewhere forbidden. She stops at a small shop near a coffin-maker's to buy some meagre provisions – garlic, onions, chicken cuts and bread.

  Ermanno's parents' home in the Ghetto Nuovo consists of a few rooms in an overcrowded, five-storey building that lies in the permanent shadow and suffocating smell of a nearby copper foundry. Because of family loyalties, he's turned down better jobs with rivals in the other half of the settlement, the Ghetto Vecchio.

  Tanina finds the love of her life studying as usual.

  Great texts and drawings from Egypt, Constantinople, old Italy, Germany and France are laid out on his sagging bed and across the dusty wooden floor where he's now sitting. The books detail treasures from all the great eras and empires in the world.

  'Bonsoir, ma cherie!' he enthuses as she enters. Then, in passable English, 'Good evening, my darling.' He gets to his feet, frees her hands of groceries and finishes in German: 'Guten Abend, mein liebling.' Then he presses his mouth to hers.

  Tanina breaks free to catch her breath. Her eyes sparkle from the clinch. She takes a long look at him. More handsome by the minute. Dark, slim, well-muscled, with eyes that make her smile and melt her heart. She unbuttons her heavy wool cloak. 'Shall I cook now or later?'

  Ermanno puts his hands to the neck of her blouse, melts her again with his eyes, and undoes the first button. 'Later. Much later.'

  CHAPTER 42

  Present Day Isola Mario, Venice Monica Vidic's killer knows who they are.

  He knows it as surely as if they were flying Carabinieri flags.

  It amuses him that they are so stupid.

  Makes him laugh that they think he'd be caught unprepared by an advance party in unmarked boats.

  Not a chance.

  He watches them on his surveillance monitors, scrambling ashore like rubber-legged tourists after a first trip on a gondola.

  Fools.

  Off in the distance, high-powered cameras scan the waves and pick out the blue-and-white hulls of the regular Carabinieri patrol boats. Supposedly out of sight. How funny. With good technology, nothing is ever out of sight.

  The killer is still smiling as he saunters from the boathouse through to the main part of the house. He chats with two new members of the commune, then wanders to the rear drawing room so he can make sure he's with the others when the surprise is sprung.

  Old brass bells over the front door of the mansion jangle into life.

  Suddenly there's bedlam.

  Panic appears on the brows of several senior security guards. A bald man with the kind of face that no doubt always looks serious is loudly announcing who he is. Apparently his name is Carvalho – Major Carvalho. He holds a search warrant high above his head and bustles in like Inspector Clouseau. Monica's killer wonders how long it'll be before the clown trips and breaks something. Behind him marches an army of plain-clothes officers armed with evidence bags and serious expressions. For Monica's murderer, it's almost too amusing for words. Vito finds a large man with rounded shoulders and a fat face blocking his progress from the front door. 'I'm Signor Ancelotti, Mario's lawyer and the commune's attorney. Let me see the warrant.' He stretches out his podgy, well-manicured hand.

  Carvalho slaps it in his pink little palm. 'I can assure you, it's in order.'

  Dino Ancelotti positions thick black-rimmed glasses over his dark eyes. 'Stop your officers from going any further. They do nothing until I have authenticated this.' He walks away, still scrutinising the paper. 'If there's so much as a spelling mistake, you can be certain we will sue.'

  All eyes are on Carvalho. Characteristically, he opts for caution. 'Wait!'

  Instantly, his search teams stop, as though playing a game of statues.

  'Wait until the lawyer has finished his check. We have ample time.'

  As they idle, a woman in blue denim shorts and a blue bikini top glides across the marble floor towards them. A digital camera buzzes, clacks and flashes in her hand. 'Cool! Pigs in the palazzo – can't wait to post these online!' She speaks English with an American accent and stops in front of Valentina. 'My, aren't you fucking gorgeous! A bit sour-faced, but Christ alive, what fabulous bone structure you've got. You ever
done porno, honey?'

  Valentina fights the fury rising inside her. 'Don't take my picture again.'

  The woman in front of her grins defiantly. She's covered in tattoos, they're everywhere, even on her face, and the lieutenant can't help but stare.

  'Here, take a picture yourself, looks like you want to,' mocks the tattooed photographer.

  Ancelotti reappears before the scene turns ugly. He holds out the warrant to Carvalho. 'It's genuine. Enjoy yourselves, but make sure your children don't break anything – there's a lot of original artwork around the place.'

  The major nods and the bustle begins again. Mario Fabianelli watches from the top of the staircase.

  He's learned that being a billionaire takes the haste out of life. You can afford to hang back – even suffer some minor losses, if necessary. The cops are going to find a little dope and a smattering of other low-category drugs as well. But working out who owns it – well, that's a whole different problem for them.

  Mario strolls down the stairs and offers his hand to the rather determined-looking Carabinieri major. 'Buongiorno, my name's Mario.' He lets the statement sink in. Let's the cop realise he's face to face with a man of incalculable wealth and power. 'Perhaps you would like to talk in a quieter room? I'm sure you have questions. Let me have someone fix some drinks for us.'

  The lawyer, Ancelotti, glues himself to his boss. 'You needn't say anything, Mario. Let them waste their time and then go.'

  The billionaire smiles. 'But I'd like to, Dino. I'm bored, and this promises to be amusing. Besides, if the Carabinieri need help, then I want to be nothing short of fully cooperative.'

  Carvalho glares at him. No envy. No hatred. Just focus. 'A drink and a chat would be good. I take my coffee black, and my conversations truthful.'

  CAPITOLO XLI

  1777