The Nosferatu Scroll

by James Becker

She turned to Marco. ‘If you want me to climb up there,’ she said, ‘you’re going to have to give me a hand.’

  He nodded, put his torch down on the floor so that it illuminated that end of the platform, then walked across to Angela. Unceremoniously, he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her straight up through the open trapdoor.

  Angela used her arms to lever herself completely through the opening, and shone the torch around her. The skeletonized remains of the body lay just a couple of feet away, but she ignored it completely. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for but, if her deductions had been correct, the lost source document that Marco and his cronies were seeking had to be somewhere nearby.

  The sides of the steeple sloped gently towards each other, to meet at a point perhaps twenty feet above her head: it was difficult to estimate the distance exactly. She doubted if the hiding place would be that inaccessible. It was more likely to be within reach of her at that moment, somewhere on the floor or the walls nearby, simply because of the difficulty of getting to the top of the steeple. Even manoeuvring a ladder into the void would have been a virtual impossibility, and the sloping walls were unclimbable.

  If the document – this scroll or codex or whatever it was – had survived, and was still hidden somewhere in the old bell tower, it had to be close by.

  Angela moved the beam of the torch slowly around her in a complete circle. She was standing on what appeared to be a solid stone floor, pierced only by the open trapdoor. It seemed unlikely that there could be a cavity anywhere within it. She shifted her glance to the walls. Formed from solid timbers, with horizontal braces every few feet, they didn’t look too hopeful either. She ran the torchlight over the walls from floor level up to about eight feet, the maximum height that most men could reach, but saw nothing that looked like a box or other kind of container.

  Then she stopped. Among the pinpricks of light filtering through the gaps between the tiles, she thought she’d spotted something else. A glint. Something shiny. Without altering her position, she moved the torch back in the opposite direction, the beam of light illuminating the opposite wall. As it passed over one of the vertical timbers, she spotted something reflective.

  She strode over to the upright, her sense of excitement mounting. The glint she’d seen was slightly to the right of the old timber, on one of the horizontal braces about five feet off the ground. The odd thing was that there seemed to be nothing on the wood that could have reflected the torchlight. Then she saw a long split that ran along the length of the brace. She bent slightly forward to peer into the crack, and discovered that the object that had attracted her attention was actually inside the timber. That really didn’t make sense.

  Angela looked at the top of the brace, and noticed two deep cuts running across it. Immediately she saw those, she guessed the reason for the wide longitudinal crack: over the years, the wood must have dried out and warped slightly. Somebody had fashioned a kind of box out of the timber, cutting off the top section and cutting out a hollow underneath it.

  She took hold of the top of the brace and lifted the wood, which came away quite easily. Lying in a shallow depression underneath was something metallic. It was that which had reflected the torchlight, the metal glinting in the darkness.

  Angela reached up and lifted it down. It was a metal cylinder about ten inches long and three inches in diameter, one end sealed by a cap. Originally it had been painted dark brown, presumably to match the colour of the wood, but much of the paint had flaked off.

  The cylinder was too small to contain a codex or a book, but it was easily big enough for a scroll or a rolled length of parchment.

  ‘What is it?’ Marco asked. He had levered himself up so that his head and shoulders were inside the void, and he was watching her closely.

  ‘A steel cylinder,’ Angela replied. ‘Do you want me to open it?’

  ‘No. Give it to me.’

  She walked across the floor to the trapdoor and looked down at Marco. He’d dropped back to the floor below, his hand raised up ready to receive the object. Angela passed him the metal cylinder and then lowered herself back down through the trapdoor. By the time she’d dropped the last couple of feet, Marco had already twisted off the steel cap and was examining a length of parchment, a cruel smile on his face.

  ‘Is that it?’

  Marco nodded. ‘Yes. We’ll need your translation skills again,’ he added as he carefully rolled up the parchment and replaced it in the cylinder. ‘Get back down the stairs. You’ve just bought yourself another few hours.’

  53

  The trick with shadowing a car was for the driver of the pursuing vehicle to remain far enough away that the man under surveillance didn’t realize anyone was following him, while at the same time keeping so close to him that he couldn’t – deliberately or accidentally – get lost in traffic. This was why surveillance operations normally used a minimum of four vehicles, including at least one powerful motorcycle able to keep up with any car, and whose rider could cut through even the heaviest traffic. And all these vehicles would swap positions at frequent and irregular intervals so that the target would never be able to see one particular vehicle in his mirrors for long enough to register it.

  Bronson, of course, was by himself, but the good news was that all he now had to do was keep his target in sight and avoid being spotted himself, a comparatively easy task in the open waters of the Laguna Veneta. There wasn’t enough boat traffic for him to lose sight of the vessel, and Bronson knew that if it vanished behind an island and didn’t reappear, it would have reached its destination. And that was what he was interested in, nothing else. Following the boat was simply a means to an end.

  Once they’d cleared the quite heavy water traffic to the south of the island of Giudecca, the two men in the blue powerboat appeared to focus on the water ahead of them. But still Bronson was cautious and, once he’d established the direction the other boat seemed to be heading, he changed his own course slightly so that he was following a parallel course and heading more towards the centre of the Venetian lagoon.

  Under other circumstances it would have been very pleasant, sitting in the powerboat in the bright sunshine, steering the vessel across the blue waters of the lagoon, the area dotted by picturesque islands, some of which had tall and elegant houses standing on them, others with low buildings, some quite dilapidated, while still other islands appeared deserted. Behind him, the bulk of the city dominated the northern end of the lagoon. In the clear afternoon light, over to the north-west, due to one of those freak atmospheric conditions that occasionally occur, he could quite clearly see the impressive snow-capped Dolomite mountains, looking as if they were only about ten miles away, though in fact they were actually about a hundred miles distant.

  But Bronson was in no mood to appreciate the aesthetics of the situation. All his attention was focused on the blue powerboat that was still heading south-west, towards the islands that lay near the Italian mainland. The number of other boats heading in the same direction had diminished considerably the further away they’d travelled from Venice, and now there were perhaps only a dozen or so craft within about half a mile of Bronson’s boat.

  As the other vessels moved away, he began to worry that the men he was following would become suspicious of him. He couldn’t afford to let this happen, so when another three boats swung west and out of his sight, he realized he was going have to do something.

  Easing back the throttle slightly, he picked up the chart of the Laguna Veneta and studied it for a few moments. He was getting close to the southern end of the lagoon, and he knew that the men he was pursuing couldn’t go very much further. He looked ahead at the blue boat, which now seemed to be heading towards a loose group of small islands, quite well separated from each other.

  Over to his right was a very small island, only about fifty yards across, which appeared to be uninhabited – or at least, he could see no sign of any buildings or other structures on it – but which looked
as if it could provide a reasonable view of the island group towards which the other boat was heading. Making a decision, he eased back still further on the throttle and turned the wheel to the right. The boat heeled over as it changed direction, and Bronson aimed it towards a gently sloping muddy mound, fringed with bushes and a handful of trees, where it looked as if he could beach the boat safely.

  A few moments later, he felt the fibreglass hull make contact with the seabed in the shallow water. Immediately, he switched off the outboard motor and pulled his leather jacket back on. He wanted to avoid the white of his shirt being seen on the island, which might alert his quarry that they were being observed.

  He clambered forward to the bow of the powerboat, seized the line and vaulted over the side of the vessel, to land with a splash, up to his calves in water. He jogged a few feet up the muddy beach, took a firm hold on the bow line and heaved the boat a few feet further up the beach, then threw the rope around the stem of a large bush and tied it securely: the one thing he couldn’t afford to do was lose the boat.

  He checked that the binoculars were still around his neck, then ran a few dozen yards until he reached the southern side of the tiny island, found a vantage point where he could see across the water that lay beyond, and dropped flat on his stomach. In seconds he had located his target.

  The two men were looking around, apparently checking out the handful of boats nearby, and Bronson congratulated himself on having hidden his boat from view. As he watched, the boat altered course slightly and headed directly towards one of the islands. Adjusting the focus of his binoculars, he switched his attention to their destination. Another small island, though probably at least ten times bigger than the islet he was lying on, it was dominated by a large, grey stone house.

  As he watched, the boat decreased speed slightly and moved around the back of the island and out of sight. Bronson remained motionless for a few minutes and continued studying the scene. But the boat didn’t reappear, although several other powerboats passed to and fro. Finally, he stood upright again and jogged through the undergrowth back to his own boat. There, he picked up the chart of the lagoon, identified the islet he was standing on, and the island behind which the boat had vanished, and marked them both on it.

  Now he had something he could take to the Italian police, because he knew there was no way he could tackle the people on the island by himself. Even armed with the pistol, which was still a heavy and comforting weight in the pocket of his leather jacket, he would be outnumbered and outgunned if he tried any kind of a solo attack. What he needed to do was to get a bunch of heavily armed carabinieri out to the island as quickly as possible.

  Bronson released the rope, gave the bow of the boat a hefty shove to refloat it, then splashed through the shallows and climbed aboard. As the boat drifted backwards, he started the engine, and swung the wheel to aim the vessel back towards the city of Venice. If this was the island where Angela was being held, he needed to get help. Fast.

  54

  The descent of the bell tower was noticeably quicker than the climb up, because Marco was clearly in a hurry, eager to show what they’d found to the hooded man who seemed to inspire such fear in everyone, not just in Angela.

  On the ground floor Angela was again handcuffed by one of the men while Marco unrolled the parchment so that he and the others could examine it more closely. It was obviously old, stained by the passage of years, the edges frayed and torn, but the men handled it as if it was pure gold. Then Marco carefully slid it back into the steel cylinder and secured the end cap.

  Within minutes, Angela was back in the cabin of the powerboat, her wrists again secured to a handrail as the boat picked up speed across the waters of the Venetian lagoon.

  This time, the hooded man didn’t share the cabin with her, instead he remained at the rear of the boat with Marco and the others, and Angela was able to stare out of the window, back towards Venice. The afternoon was bright, but patches of mist drifted across the water, giving the lagoon a ghostly and ethereal appearance. Her view was partially blocked by the island of Giudecca, lying just to the south of Venice, but what she could see of the eastern end of the old city seemed almost to float, the mist obscuring much of the lower levels of the buildings. But even over the bulk of Giudecca, she could still make out the top of one of the most enduring images of Venice: the Campanile di Marco, the huge bell tower in the Piazza San Marco.

  She remembered when she and Chris had joined the thousands of other tourists and walked around the square, looking up at the huge brick structure. The original, she remembered, had been built in the sixteenth century, but then collapsed unexpectedly in 1902. The people of Venice had rejected every new design produced by hopeful architects, and simply had the tower rebuilt to exactly the same plan as the original.

  They’d been happy, that afternoon, despite the crowds milling around them, and had even thrown caution to the wind and ordered a coffee in one of the cafés that lined the piazza, wincing at the price but revelling in the atmosphere. Now, Angela pondered, as she stared back through the small cabin window towards Venice, she had no idea where Chris was, what had happened to him, or even whether he was alive or dead. And Marco had made it perfectly clear that her own lifespan was now measured in hours rather than years. She had no future, but without Chris beside her she realized she wasn’t actually sure she wanted one.

  For a moment, she felt like giving way, letting the tears flow, tears of utter and complete despair, but she steeled herself. If Chris was alive, she knew that he’d be tearing Venice apart looking for her, and she owed it to him, as well as to herself, not to give in without a fight.

  There was nothing she could do in the bouncing speedboat, no way to attract attention, but once they got back to the island, maybe she could escape from the men, perhaps even try to swim to another island. She shivered at this prospect, not from fear, but at the simple realization that if that really was her last, desperate resort, then she’d be far more likely to die from hypothermia in the cold waters of the lagoon.

  But even that might be better than whatever fate Marco had planned for her.

  55

  Bronson made good time getting back to Venice. Water traffic in the lagoon had thinned out considerably, and he was able to hold the boat at more or less top speed for most of the way. And time, he knew, really was of the essence.

  He moored the powerboat as close as he could to the police station in San Marco, remembering his meeting with Bianchi there and the body of the young woman he’d been asked to identify. As his thoughts returned to that scene, Bronson once again gave somewhat guilty thanks that the pale and lifeless body had been that of someone he’d never seen before, and not Angela. If it had been, Bronson knew he would never have been able to forgive himself.

  But now, finally, he thought he knew where she might be. And even if she wasn’t on that particular island, he was quite convinced that the people there would know something about her, and might have been involved in her abduction. All he had to do was to convince the police to take action.

  At the desk inside the station he asked to speak directly to Bianchi, but was told that the senior inspector was unavailable, which Bronson knew could mean almost anything. But he needed action quickly, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to be fobbed off by the Italian equivalent of a truculent desk sergeant.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ he said in Italian, ‘because I think I know the whereabouts of the men who’ve been killing all these girls in Venice.’

  The sergeant told him to wait, picked up the internal phone and held a very brief conversation. Less than two minutes later, Bianchi strode into the station’s reception area.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, his step faltering as he recognized Bronson, ‘it’s you again. You have some information for us, I believe?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bronson said, and he began to explain how he’d seen two men vandalizing a grave on the Island of San Michele, and how, when he’d approached them, they’d shot at him. />
  Before Bronson got even halfway through his highly edited account of what had taken place on the Isola di San Michele, Bianchi began looking at him in what could only be described as a suspicious manner. But he waited until Bronson had finished – describing how he’d followed the men to an island out in the lagoon – before he responded.

  ‘And I suppose you know nothing about a man we found out on San Michele?’ Bianchi said. ‘He’s now in hospital, suffering from severe concussion, because somebody smashed him over the head with a lead-filled cosh.’

  ‘I only saw the two men I’ve told you about, nobody else.’ Bronson held Bianchi’s unblinking stare until the policeman looked down at the notes he’d made.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘And are you sure you can identify this island again?’

  Bronson nodded and showed Bianchi the chart of the lagoon he’d brought from the powerboat, on which he’d drawn a distinct circle around one of the islands at the southern end of the lagoon. He’d wisely left the pistol and the spare magazines locked up on the boat, having concluded that walking into a police station carrying an unlicensed semi-automatic pistol probably wasn’t the sharpest of ideas. But he definitely wanted to hang on to the weapon in case he did have to take matters into his own hands in order to rescue Angela.

  And Bianchi’s immediate reaction when he looked at the chart suggested that this might be a possibility.

  ‘I know this island,’ he said. ‘Are you absolutely sure this is where the two men went?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bronson replied. ‘I didn’t actually see them moor their boat or get out of it, because they went around to the opposite side of the island, behind the house.’

  ‘You’re mistaken,’ Bianchi said flatly. ‘That’s a private island owned by a senior Italian politician. It’s inconceivable that a man of his stature and standing in the community could possibly be involved in anything like this. And,’ he went on remorselessly, ‘I still do not see any evidence of the link you’re suggesting between the men you followed out to the island and the abduction of your wife or, for that matter, the deaths of young women in this city. What, exactly, would be the connection between a vandalized grave on San Michele and either of these two crimes?’