The Venice Conspiracy

by Sam Christer

  Venthi’s voice reaches him from the edge of the temple. He sounds nervous. An anxious father who’d rather his son wasn’t about to endure this ordeal. ‘They are ready. They are waiting for you.’

  Music plays. Melancholy strings. Long flute notes.

  Four hooded acolytes take up their positions – two in front and two behind their netsvis. They will help sacrifice sheep on new libation altars outside the temple, built so blood pours straight into the soil and is drunk by the deities of the earth.

  Teucer feels the beat of the music. Uses it to set his own rhythm. Stride and pace will be crucial.

  Ten steps forward. He turns right.

  Fifty steps along the side of the temple. Right again to the foot of the vast steps.

  Six steps to ascend.

  The acolytes fan out.

  Teucer is centre stage.

  The crowds and nobles fall silent.

  He can feel their eyes on him.

  Hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He can sense the six huge pillars around him, gathered like gigantic gods.

  He turns and faces the populace. Feels the sun on his skin. Warm. Energising. Confidence-building.

  Teucer stretches his arms wide. ‘In the name of the holy trinity – in honour of Uni, Tinia and Menrva – I humbly declare that I, the netsvis of Atmanta, am servant to all divin ities. Today, in the presence of the noblest of mortal guests from all corners of Etruria, we dedicate this temple to you glorious gods who so divinely shape our futures in this life and in the afterlife that awaits the worthy among us. Almighty deities who preside over the universe and sit in judgement on us, in humility and with solemn reverence we bow before you and offer this house to you as evidence of our love and our devotion.’ Teucer puts two fingers from each hand on his eyes. ‘My sight you have taken in order that I might see more clearly. I praise your wisdom in this act, and I beseech you now to guide my feet and my hands as I lead our people and our guests into your house and dedicate its rooms and gifts to you.’

  Teucer’s robes swirl as he turns. He strides confidently between the pillars and through two giant doors.

  One step over the threshold he reaches out his right hand and unhesitatingly grabs the new lituus that Tetia has made and left resting against the wall in that precise spot.

  Pesna and the nobles are the first to follow him in. They file the full length of a long table of freshly hewn cypress running down the centre of the main room. Barely an inch of wood is visible. Bloodless gifts of every nature fill the surface. Sculptures in bronze and gold. Vases, urns, bowls, pottery of every shape and size.

  Teucer lifts his staff in two hands. Sweeps it slowly and majestically right and left. ‘These precious gifts, uniquely made in honour of each unique deity are tokens of our love, loyalty and the lives we dedicate to you. I bless them in your names and pass them now to you so that you may remember them and us, your servants, now and for ever …’

  Pesna’s eyes flit along the line of noblemen. They are clearly impressed. As is he. The netsvis is spellbinding. His blindness gives him an unexpected and unforgettable aura. No one in the room has given so much as a passing thought to the missing Romans.

  All is going to plan.

  Pesna knows the men of money and power will be even more enamoured with him when he feasts them and delivers the speech he has planned.

  Everything is perfect.

  Now his eyes trail along the table to the central position where the solid silver Gates of Destiny take pride of place, ready for the blessing.

  Only they are not there.

  His breathing stops.

  They are gone.

  CAPITOLO XXVII

  By the time the consecration ceremony has finished, the sun has started to slip down the western slope of the temple’s new terracotta roof.

  Pesna stands in the cool shade of an overhang, accepting praise from the nobles filing out and trying not to look distracted by the theft of his most prized possession.

  ‘A memorable service …’

  ‘A genuine privilege and honour to be here …’

  ‘Such a gifted young netsvis …’

  The compliments trip lightly off their tongues. But all he can think of are the Gates of Destiny.

  Who could have taken them?

  Kavie is talking to some Perusians. Perhaps him?

  Larth is waiting impatiently with his chariot. Him?

  Caele is flirting with Hercha, toying with a curl of her hair. Him? Her? Both of them?

  The sculptress Tetia is deep in discussion with Larthuza the Healer.

  Her? Him?

  And then there is the netsvis. The crippled priest who today put on the service of a lifetime. A performance so perfect you could even doubt that he was blind. Him?

  Kavie appears at Pesna’s side and motions to Larth and the waiting chariot. ‘We should make haste. It would serve us well to go ahead of our guests and be at the mine to greet them.’

  The magistrate looks nervous. ‘Are the gifts ready?’

  ‘They are. There is choice enough for everyone. Even the greediest will find their avarice sated.’

  Pesna glances again at Teucer. ‘Have the netsvis searched. Thoroughly! Strip him naked.’

  Kavie looks confused. ‘Why?’

  ‘The Gates of Destiny are gone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Gone! I personally placed them on the table of gifts for his blessing.’

  Kavie looks around. He sees nothing suspicious. ‘When did they go missing?’

  ‘Only moments before the ceremony started. The temple was empty – fully guarded outside – and only I was afforded access. He must have hidden them during the service, and now he no doubt intends to steal away and sell them somewhere to build a new life with that damned sculptress.’

  ‘I will have Larth’s men do it now. I’ll get the temple searched, too, in case they’re hidden in there somewhere.’

  *

  By the time Larth returns from instructing his men to deal with Teucer, Pesna and Kavie are already inside the chariot.

  ‘Make haste!’ shouts the magistrate. ‘It will be discourteous if we are not there before the parties of nobles.’

  The driver obediently whips the stallions and dust kicks up as Larth leaps aboard.

  ‘Cut across the decumanus,’ he commands. ‘It is a less comfortable ride, but far quicker.’

  The route quickly becomes rutted. It amuses Larth to think of his noble employer behind him, being jolted till his teeth rattle.

  It isn’t long before Kavie shouts an objection. ‘Be careful! We are weathering a storm back here.’

  Larth’s throaty laugh is lost beneath the thunder of hooves.

  Then it happens.

  The front right horse loses its footing.

  The driver pulls hard on the reins.

  The other three beasts lose their line.

  A wheel cracks on a rock.

  Larth tumbles from the board. Crashes headlong into a bank of scree and boulders.

  A cloud of dust billows in ominous silence for several seconds.

  Pesna slowly emerges from the wreckage, unhurt but furious.

  He stares at Larth and the driver, both of whom are picking themselves off the ground, bloodied and bruised. ‘Idiots! Blundering idiots!’ He kicks the driver in the kidneys, then turns on Larth. ‘Look! Look! The spokes are completely broken. It’s useless!’ He pushes the sole of a sandal against the shattered wheel. ‘How am I to reach the mine with my carriage in pieces?’

  Kavie bends and helps Larth to his feet. ‘Let me see into your eye, Larth. Keep still, it has half a roadway in there.’

  Larth brushes him away. ‘It is nothing. Let me examine the chariot.’ He steps across the boulders on to the rough track. One look at the damage is enough to tell him that the wheel cannot be fixed and will need changing. ‘Take the horses, Magistrate.’ He addresses the petrified driver. ‘Unbridle them. The back two will be best. Get a move on or I’ll
do more than kick you!’ He looks to Kavie and Pesna. ‘I will send this old fool for a new wheel. When I have fixed it, I’ll drive it back.’

  Kavie turns to the magistrate. ‘Larth is right. We are but moments from the mine by horseback. We should do as he says.’

  Pesna’s temper is still boiling. The broken carriage has merely compounded his fury about the missing silverware. He slaps Larth across his bleeding face. ‘You brainless ox. All you had to do was steer four horses in a line. There are whores who could have done what I asked of you.’ He sweeps his hand to hit Larth again, but the big man grabs it as if he were catching a fly.

  Larth glares at him. An unblinking look of pure menace. He could kill him in a second, and wants to.

  Kavie, fearing the worst, steps forward and puts himself between the two men. ‘Larth, my friend, remember your position. Pull yourself together.’

  Blood is trickling down Larth’s face. He loosens his grip on Pesna’s crushed hand. ‘It is good advice, Kavie. I thank you.’ He picks up the reins of the stallion and passes them to Pesna. ‘Magistrate, I offer my apologies and beg your forgiveness. I pray the rest of your journey is untroubled.’

  Pesna says nothing. He snatches the reins, mounts the horse and spins it into a dusty gallop towards the horizon.

  Larth watches the sandy cloud swirl skyward and congratulates himself for his restraint. He will kill Pesna.

  Not now.

  Not yet.

  But soon.

  CHAPTER 32

  Present Day

  Carabinieri HQ, Venice

  For Vito, Valentina and the rest of the murder squad there is no longer day and night.

  There is only work. Their lives have been reduced to an endless round of briefings, meetings and fresh crime scenes.

  A briefing has been scheduled in a room leading off the one that has recently become home from home for Carvalho’s team. The centre of a long table is filled with steel pots of fresh coffee, old white cups and saucers, dull glass tumblers and clusters of bottled water that look like skyscraper cities built by a kids’ art class.

  Major Vito Carvalho checks that everyone he needs is present. Sylvio Montesano and two of his assistants occupy the far end of the table. To their left are Rocco Baldoni and Valentina Morassi. Vito wishes she wasn’t here. He’s urged her to take time off, give herself space to grieve, but she’s convinced the best therapy is to throw herself into her work. If he had time to take her to one side, he’d explain just how disastrous that philosophy can be.

  The forensics specialists from RaCIS, Isabella Lombardelli and her assistant Gavino Greco, sit to the right of the Medical Examiner and are currently in deep conversation with him about something in a file spread out between them.

  Other places are taken by team leaders, officers who head up the various shifts, and those who will oversee house-to-house enquiries or liaise with state prosecutors.

  Finally, there is Tom Shaman. Vito had thought long and hard about how much to involve the American. Having him on board as an expert adviser was one thing; letting him into operational briefings was another. In the end he went with his instincts and the fact that in a murder enquiry, especially one involving a possible serial killer, you need every pair of hands and useful brain that you can get.

  ‘Thank you all for coming. Let’s get things under way.’ He pauses to let the cross-table chatter die down. ‘Lieutenant Baldoni will give us an updated overview. Rocco—’

  The diminutive detective pushes back his chair and walks to a large white flipchart labelled VICTIMS. ‘We now have three bodies.’ He needs to stretch to turn the first page. ‘Victim One – teenager Monica Vidic. Victim Two – a dismembered male believed to be in his sixties, still unidentified. Victim Three – a dismembered male, still unidentified, estimated to be in his twenties. The two unknowns were found in sacks in the laguna’ – he avoids Valentina’s eyes – ‘close to where the body of our former colleague Antonio Pavarotti was found.’ He gestures towards the ME. ‘Professore Montesano will circulate a new report at the end of this meeting. For now, Professore, have you any comment on times of death?’

  Sylvio Montesano clears his throat. ‘Using strontium, iron and polonium, we ran a series of tests to determine the constituents of short, half-light radioisotopes found within the human bones. In this manner we were able to ascertain that the older male had been in the water for approximately eighteen months, while the younger male was dropped in the lagoon about a year ago. That means the gap between the two bodies is approximately six months.’

  Baldoni turns the page on his flipchart. ‘So to recap, we are now looking at three bodies. The oldest victim, a male in his sixties, was dropped about a year and a half ago. The middle victim, a male in his twenties, was dropped about a year ago. And the third victim, a fifteen-year-old female, was discovered this month.’ He turns to the expert from RaCIS: ‘Isabella, can you help us cement this pattern?’

  Lombardelli is casually dressed in a blue roll-neck sweater and jeans, and has the attention of every man in the room even before she speaks. ‘Professore Montesano and his team isolated bone sections on both bodies recovered from the lagoon.’ She opens a folder and produces a series of slide printouts and overlays. ‘We used environmental scanning electron microscopy, ESEM, on the bones. This allowed us to look closely at any false starts, kerf walls and floors caused in the bone, along with draw and pull marks left by the saw. The high magnifications of the ESEM made it possible for us to determine conclusively that a chainsaw had been used for dismemberment of both male bodies.’

  One of the team leaders, a man in his late thirties with a dark beard shadow, raises his hand.

  Isabella smiles graciously at the interruption. ‘Si?’

  ‘Chainsaws are difficult to carry around. Near impossible to conceal and very loud to use. Couldn’t it have been a bow saw? I’ve got a heavy-duty one that I use on timber.’

  The scientist’s smile widens. ‘Then keep it for timber, because it will be little use if you ever need to cut up a corpse. Bow saws, heavy-duty or not, won’t cut through thick human bones – it’s all to do with the way their teeth are set.’

  ‘Grazie,’ says the team leader, with a certain irony.

  Isabella picks up where she left off: ‘Both male bodies had been dismembered using the same saw, most likely a high-powered petrol model with a chain of fifty centimetres.’ She looks towards the man who’d asked the question. ‘Such a tool would probably have an engine of about 50 cc – the size of a small moped – so the user clearly wasn’t concerned about concealing what he was doing.’

  Vito can’t help but interrupt. ‘To be clear, are you saying that the two male victims are both linked to the same saw?’

  Isabella hesitates. ‘Correct.’

  Montesano interjects, addressing the whole squad: ‘Please be careful.

  The key word here is “linked”. The chainsaw was used for dismemberment, not for murder.’

  ‘The professore is quite right,’ adds the scientist. ‘I’m not telling you only one person was involved. Nor am I telling you that several were involved. That’s for you to discover. I’m merely describing for you the single instrument used in the dismemberment.’

  The statement is about as definitive as Isabella can make, given the circumstances. She thanks everyone and steps aside for Rocco Baldoni. He flips another page on the chart. ‘Some other factors to remember. All three bodies were found within ten kilometres of each other. The ones in the lagoon were considerably decomposed, so we cannot be a hundred per cent certain that the livers were deliberately removed, but we can say the organs were not found with the bodies. Because Monica was not dimembered and therefore there were no saw marks, this organ removal is what primarily links all three cases. Professore Montesano tells us the elderly male victim had extensive injuries to the back of the skull, indicative of a ferocious attack from behind with a blunt object such as a rock or hammer. Despite the advanced state of decomposition of t
he younger male, there are indications that he suffered stab wounds to the side of his neck. Remember, we already know that Monica Vidic was abducted and restrained by a very controlled and calm killer. He cut her throat while facing her; meaning he was neither squeamish nor inexperienced and actually wanted that eye contact with his victim. I’ve been talking to our Crime Pattern Analyst and he thinks we’re looking at a single, gradually evolving offender. Attack One from behind is cowardly and rushed – a sign the offender was unsure of himself. Attack Two may have been from the side with a knife – indicative of the offender getting closer and bolder in his MO. And the final assault was a full-blown abduction and then a very controlled execution, a sign that the killer was perfecting his technique.’

  Valentina raises her hand. ‘Monica was stabbed more than six hundred times and her body not dismembered at all. That seems completely at odds with the two earlier corpses.’

  ‘You’re right, it does,’ says Vito. ‘But the stab marks on the male bones and the removal of the liver are key linking factors.’

  Valentina presses her point: ‘But how do you explain the differences?’

  Vito understands her desire to know more about the psychology of the man they’re hunting. ‘I think our UNSUB was rehearsing on the earlier victims. He was trying to develop a ritualistic way of killing people. He made a real mess of it with the older male victim, tried to be more precise with the second one and finally got it right with Monica.’

  Tom catches his eye. ‘And now that he’s got it right, what next?’

  Vito, Valentina and Montesano all answer at the same time: ‘He’s going to kill again.’

  CAPITOLO XXVIII

  666 BC

  Atmanta

  Arnza and Masu are only too delighted to have been chosen to carry out Larth’s instructions. They’ve not been long in his employ and he has rarely noticed them, let alone favoured them with tasks of any importance. Even more pleasingly, they have a personal grudge against the netsvis.