by James Becker
He lowered the binoculars and stared out across the lagoon, despair clutching at his heart. He’d been so convinced that he’d found where Angela was being held, so sure that he’d be able to rescue her. But the cold hard reality was that he was no further forward than he’d been the previous day. All he could think of doing was climbing back into his boat and carrying out a visual search of all the islands in the vicinity, and just hoping that he spotted the blue powerboat — the right blue powerboat.
He was about to reach down to release the bow line when a tiny gleam of light attracted his attention. It was coming from the area between, and obviously behind, the two inhabited islands he’d already looked at. At first, it looked as if the light might actually be on the mainland, but when he brought the binoculars up to his eyes he could see that there was another island in the lagoon, quite some distance to the south, which he’d never noticed. He’d been so fixated on the island owned by the Italian politician that he hadn’t thought to check any further south.
He studied it carefully through the binoculars, and noticed straight away that it was reasonably isolated. The only thing anywhere near it was a tiny patch of reeds and scrubby vegetation about a hundred yards away from its western shore. Bronson wasn’t even sure that he’d find any solid ground there, but it was absolutely the only possible vantage point from which he could see what was happening on the island.
There was another grey stone house there, and some kind of outbuilding nearby. The light he’d seen was coming from a downstairs window, and was a mere sliver escaping through the gap between two shutters. Other than that, he could see no sign of life.
Bronson took a final look at both the island, where the thin vertical line of light still marked the position of the house, and the tiny clump of reeds, fixing their relative positions in his mind. Then he unhitched the rope, climbed down into his boat, started the engine and moved slowly away. At least the gathering darkness might help conceal him from anyone who might be watching from the island.
He steered the boat well out to the west, then turned the bow so that it pointed directly towards the reeds, closed the throttle still further and approached at little more than walking pace. He kept as low as he could in the vessel, knowing that the silhouette of a man sitting in a boat was very distinctive, and that by lying almost flat, his craft would hopefully just look like another shadow on the water in the gloom.
He turned off the engine when he was still a few feet clear of the reeds, and allowed the boat to drift into them. At the very least, they would hold the boat reasonably steady while he looked at the island through his binoculars.
But in fact, a few moments later the hull grounded, probably on mud, and the boat shuddered to a stop. That was better than he had hoped. Bronson climbed out of the vessel and pulled it further into the reed bed. The ground, such as it was, was soft and spongy underfoot, and several times his feet plunged into holes several inches deep, soaking his shoes and trouser legs. But he didn’t care. His search for Angela was back on course.
Making certain that the boat was wedged tightly in place, Bronson stepped back on board and resumed his scrutiny of the island through his binoculars.
62
Marco hadn’t finished with her. Despite his bleak statement to her that she would be dead — dying screaming in agony — within hours, there was still the final section of the text to be translated. And Angela knew she had no option but to comply.
Tears clouding her eyes, she again bent forward over the photocopied pages.
After describing in graphic detail the appalling ceremony designed to turn a human being into a vampire, and which would, almost incidentally, necessitate the rape and murder of not one but two young women, the author of the work had concluded by describing how an initiate would know if the process had been successful.
This section of the text was perhaps the least detailed of the entire corpus of work. The author admitted that there was no definitive proof, but suggested that an increasing dislike of consuming the meat of animals, of the beasts of the fields, and an aversion to daylight, were positive indicators. And if the initiate eventually found that he could only be sustained by the flesh of the recently dead, then it was certain that he would live for ever.
And now she even knew the name of the lapsed monk, as Marco had described him, and where he’d lived, because the very last section of the Latin text contained a single sentence that identified him, clearly written by the member of the society who’d copied down the words of the author. The translation read: Inscribed by my hand this fourteenth day of the month of August in the year eleven hundred and twenty-six, from the sacred words of our most sacred and illustrious Master, the noble and revered Father Amadeus of Gyor, Transdanubia.
Angela had actually heard of Gyor — it was one of the counties of what became known in the eighteenth century as the Districtus Trans-Danubianus, that part of Hungary which lay to the south and west of the River Danube. It was one of the twelve counties of Transdanubia whose boundaries had been established by Stephen I of Hungary, and which remained unchanged until 1920.
But if ever a monk — lapsed or otherwise — had been misnamed, it was Amadeus of Gyor. His name meant ‘lover of God’, and what Angela had read had convinced her that she’d rarely read anything more evil, more contrary to the essential goodness preached by most religions and especially by Christianity, than the treatise in front of her.
She shuddered slightly, and handed the page to Marco, who retreated to his chair, where he read slowly through the rest of what she had transcribed.
‘So what happens now?’ Angela asked nervously.
Marco smiled coldly at her. ‘The good news,’ he said, ‘is that you get to keep all your fingers. But you already know the bad news. You’ll take part — in fact, you’ll have a starring role — in the ceremony tonight.’
The slight smile left his face, and he nodded at her, his eyes travelling up and down her body appreciatively.
‘It would have been helpful if you’d had your passport in your handbag,’ he continued. ‘But even so, we’ve managed to initiate some enquiries in Britain, and on the Internet, into your family history, and as far as we can tell there’s no evidence that your bloodline — any of your ancestors, I mean — have ever been linked to one of the noble families of the immortals. So you’re an ideal candidate for the ceremony. You’re here on the island, and we need to dispose of you anyway, simply because you’ve seen our faces and you know too much about us. And, to look on the bright side, having you here means we don’t have to snatch another girl off the streets of Venice. So your death will actually save the life of a stranger.’
Angela felt a chill of pure terror sweep over her. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Nothing she could say would make the slightest difference to her fate. She had fallen in with a group of people for whom the sanctity of human life meant absolutely nothing, and who would kill her without the faintest flicker of remorse or regret. The only thing that would concern them was whether or not her death could assist them in their pointless and horrendous activities.
Tears filled her eyes, and she dropped her head into her hands. That something like this could happen to her — to anyone — in a civilized country like Italy, in the twenty-first century, was simply appalling. She wondered where Chris was, whether he was even still alive, or if he was now lying on a slab in some mortuary in Venice. It had been a disaster and it was all her fault, she thought bitterly and inconsequentially. The holiday to Italy had been her idea. Everything had been her idea, even the visit to the Isola di San Michele, which had started everything.
‘Let’s go,’ Marco said. The door of the drawing-room now stood open and two burly figures were waiting in the hall outside.
‘Where to?’ Angela managed, her voice barely audible.
‘We have a convenient cellar. It’s where we hold our ceremonies, in fact. And until tonight you’ll have a bit of company, because the other girl is alrea
dy waiting down there. But there’s no point in you trying to get friendly with her,’ he added. ‘You’ll both be dead before midnight.’
Angela snapped. She grabbed one of the pencils — the only thing she could see that even slightly resembled a weapon — and swung it as hard and as fast as she could towards Marco’s face, aiming for his eyes.
But it was as if he’d been expecting it, and he effortlessly blocked the blow with his left arm, simultaneously swinging his right hand towards her, catching her a stinging blow with his hand against her cheek.
‘You’ve got some spirit, I’ll give you that,’ he said. ‘It’s a shame you have to die tonight. If we’d had you here a little longer we could have had some fun with you. Taught you a little humility, perhaps. Take her away.’
63
Bronson had studied the island closely, trying to glean as much detail as he could in the fading light about the terrain and the buildings. It appeared to be quite large, the landscape dominated by another big house built of light-coloured stone, while behind that was what looked like a ruined outhouse of some sort. Most of the walls were still standing, but the roof had vanished. And a little way behind that was another much smaller building, apparently made of wood. At the front of the house, just about visible from where Bronson sat, binoculars glued to his eyes, was quite a large inlet with ample mooring spaces. He could see at least two boats there, both with dark paintwork, but the light had now faded to the point where he could no longer make out colours.
He completed his visual survey of the island and then sat back in the seat in his boat. Then he looked away, because a distant sound was becoming steadily more audible. A powerboat was approaching the area, and Bronson swung round in his seat to try to spot the vessel as it drew near. He assumed it was simply a tourist enjoying an early-evening boat ride, or possibly a police launch sailing through the area as part of its normal patrol route.
In fact, the boat was actually a reasonable-sized launch, and within seconds of spotting it, Bronson realized that it was heading directly for the island in front of him. The obvious conclusion was that the owners of the property — perhaps an Italian family — were returning home after a day out in Venice. And if this was the case, then Bronson knew he’d got it wrong yet again.
He focused his binoculars on the vessel as it approached. There were clearly several people on board the launch, their bulky shapes just visible in the twilight, although it was now too dark for him to be able to see their faces. He watched as the vessel slowed down, and then nosed gently into the inlet. In a few seconds, the sound of the engine died away to nothing, and Bronson watched expectantly for the passengers to alight from the craft.
But before this happened, the main door of the house swung open and two men and a woman stepped out, their figures briefly illuminated by the light streaming out of the property. Could it be Angela? His heart thumping, Bronson ignored the figures who were now walking from the jetty towards the house, and concentrated on trying to see the other three people more clearly.
He couldn’t. The light was very poor, patches of mist were drifting across the water in front of him, and their faces were invisible because they were walking away from him. Even through the binoculars all he could really be sure of was that there were two dark-haired men flanking a blonde woman. Bronson tensed. Angela was blonde, but so were a lot of other women in Venice. The reality was that they could have been anybody, but he kept watching all the same.
They were walking along a path that ran down the side of the house towards the back of the property. It looked as if the woman was having trouble walking — the men seemed to be supporting her on both sides. Perhaps, he wondered, she was physically disabled in some way, or possibly even drunk. The idea of a party going on in the house hadn’t occurred to him until that moment, but it was a possible, perhaps even a probable, explanation for what he was seeing.
The three figures now seemed less important to Bronson than the new arrivals, and he switched his attention back to the area that lay between the jetty and the house itself, and concentrated on the people who were walking towards the front door of the property. And his idea about a party seemed to be supported by what he saw. In the light that streamed out of the front door, he could see that the new arrivals were all men, and all appeared to be dressed elegantly, white shirts and ties in evidence underneath the coats they were wearing against the chilly crossing of the lagoon.
It looked to Bronson as if he was watching a group of early arrivals turning up for a dinner party, out to enjoy an entirely innocent evening. He knew he had to be in the wrong place — again. He lowered the binoculars and stood up. He’d head back to Venice, grab something to eat and get an early night, and then start his search again in the morning.
He was actually standing in ankle-deep water beside the bow of the boat, ready to push it back, when a scream rang out across the lagoon.
64
Angela struggled as the two men hustled her out of the house and along the path that led to the ruined church, but she was as helpless as a child between the two heavily built men and her frantic attempts to escape achieved nothing. Out of sheer desperation, she released a single scream, a howl of terror that echoed off the building beside her.
One of the men raised his hand to strike her, but the other one stopped him.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘We don’t want her bleeding everywhere. I’ll give her a jolt instead.’
He pulled a taser from his pocket, held it in front of Angela’s face, and then pressed it against her blouse.
Angela hadn’t understood what the man had said, but she knew what a gun looked like.
‘No, please, no. Please don’t.’
Her voice rose to a crescendo, but was then abruptly cut short as the Italian squeezed the trigger. The current that slammed into her was like being hit by a truck, and she jolted backwards and then tumbled unconscious to the ground.
‘Now we’ll have to carry her,’ the man with the taser said.
They each took one of her arms and looped it over their shoulders, and continued their short journey into the ruined church.
65
The scream galvanized Bronson. It was almost feral in its intensity, a primeval howl of anguish and fear, the sound of a woman pushed to her breaking point. And somehow, he simply knew it was Angela. He hadn’t been able to recognize her through the binoculars, but the instant he heard the piercing scream he knew exactly where she was.
If he’d needed any confirmation, what happened next supplied it. There was a confused babble of voices, too far away for him even to tell what language they were speaking, and then he saw a faint but distinct blue flash, and the woman just seemed to collapse on to the path.
Bronson knew immediately what had happened to her: they’d used a taser. Then he looked on in horror as they unceremoniously dragged her into the ruined building behind the house.
For a few moments, he considered his options, limited though they were. He didn’t know how many people were on the island, but he’d already seen the two men with the woman he was sure was Angela, and at least four men had arrived in the launch, so he was severely outnumbered. He remembered the old Clint Eastwood line: ‘the three of us — that’s me, Smith and Wesson’; but even with the Browning Hi-Power as a force multiplier, he was still unsure if he could take on that many people, some of whom must be armed.
He definitely needed back-up. He took out his mobile phone and dialled the number Bianchi had given him at the police station in San Marco. His call was answered in a few seconds, but not by the inspector, who was now off duty. For a moment, Bronson considered trying to persuade the duty-sergeant to send a couple of boatloads of armed police out to the island, but after the fiasco of the earlier ‘investigation’, he doubted if he would be taken seriously. He really needed to speak to Bianchi himself.
‘I’ve found my wife,’ Bronson said, ‘and I need urgent help to rescue her. It’s essential that I speak with Inspector
Bianchi as soon as possible. Can you please give me his mobile number?’
Bronson could almost hear the thought processes of the sergeant at the other end of the line, as he weighed up the possible consequences of giving a civilian — Bronson — Inspector Bianchi’s mobile number, with the even more dire consequences of not giving him the number if it turned out that Bronson really had located the kidnappers and the woman then died.
‘Very well,’ the sergeant said. ‘But if anyone asks, you got his number from the phone book, not from me. You understand?’
‘Whatever you want,’ Bronson agreed, and wrote down the number in his notebook, using the light from the mobile phone’s screen to see what he was doing.
Still worried sick about Angela, he scanned the island again through the binoculars: the two men were walking back from the ruins. Then he heard the sound of another boat approaching, and looked over to his left. He could just about make out a launch — it looked slightly smaller than the other boat — heading for the island, and a couple of minutes later that boat, too, edged its way slowly into the inlet and stopped beside the jetty. Even more people were arriving, increasing the odds against Bronson still further.
He dialled the number he’d written down, pressed the button to complete the call and lifted the phone to his ear. He heard the ringing tone, and simultaneously the shrill sound of a mobile phone rang out over the lagoon. Bronson couldn’t believe what he saw next: one of the figures walking from the jetty towards the house stopped and pulled a phone from his pocket. Bianchi was himself a member of the group that had abducted Angela.
66
‘Yes, Signor Bronson?’ Bianchi asked, his tone resigned. ‘What do you want now?’
