The Prosecco Fortune

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘I’m missing London and my home. Strange really, when I love it here.’

  ‘Then tonight we will go party, to cheer sad lady up. I have an invitation to the gallery of modern art. A special showing of a new painter. It will be fun.’

  A gallery of modern art, even in Venice, did not sound all that fun, but it might be interesting.

  ‘No food, please,’ said Emma. ‘I don’t want to eat.’

  ‘No food,’ he promised. ‘Only the food of the gods.’

  Emma was longing to ask Marco what he had discovered from all the phone calls, but he seemed lost in thought. Perhaps he also needed the distraction of some modern art. Back at the palazzo, he handed her the key to the locked bedroom.

  ‘We shall take a vaporetto,’ he said. ‘Find something elegant but warm to wear.’ Emma nodded. She wanted to look around the locked bedroom again.

  ‘We shall not be in for supper,’ he told Maria, who was waiting in the hall. ‘We are going out.’

  ‘Si, signor.’

  Emma wondered if anyone ever went into the room; certainly not Maria, for she would have dusted away the traces of face powder on the dressing table and hung up discarded clothes. It was as if the owner had only gone out and left everything. Perhaps that is what had happened. Perhaps the woman had walked out on Marco.

  She wandered in, taking in the atmosphere of the locked bedroom. It felt a strangely happy place, nothing menacing about it.

  She looked at the photographs of the beautiful young woman again and at Marco, often in the background, attentive and admiring. But none of the photographs held a clue. Most of them were taken at parties.

  What did one wear to an art gallery in Venice? Warm and elegant, said Marco. She decided to wear her own black trousers if they were travelling on a vaporetto, solving the prospect of skirts blowing up as she stepped aboard. She found a slender tunic top of creamy lace, lined with silk. It was beautiful, with long sleeves that fell to a point.

  The answer to keeping warm was a black three-quarter-length cashmere wrap-over coat with a cowl collar. The buttons were embossed silver. Emma cut off the price tags without looking at them. She did not want to know that she was walking round wearing a fortune. Her own flat shoes would do perfectly well tonight.

  On impulse she tucked in the red and gold scarf that Marco had bought her. He did not seem to notice the scarf. He looked at her, up and down. She wished she had done something different with her hair.

  ‘Always the black,’ he said, as he opened the front door, his dark eyes glinting. ‘What are you in mourning for?’

  If only he knew, thought Emma. It was her own dilemma. Perhaps love would change everything.

  A man was standing on the steps, not very tall, but lean and muscular. He had very short dark hair, as if it had been shorn recently. His chin was dark with stubble. He looked hungry and tired.

  ‘Buono sera, Marco,’ he said. ‘This is not convenient? So, tomorrow?’

  ‘No, Claudio, please come in. Emma, this is Commissario di Polizia, Claudio Morelli. Emma Chandler, my accountant.’

  ‘Signorina,’ said Claudio Morelli, bowing over her hand. ‘I have pleasure in meeting you. Forgive if my English is not good.’

  ‘It’s very good,’ Emma assured him.

  Claudio had a sealed, clear plastic bag under his arm. ‘Please, signorina, if it will not upset you. Can you identify this raincoat? It is needed for forensics still, so I cannot take it from the bag.’

  ‘Yes, that looks like my raincoat,’ said Emma. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s mine. It looks like mine but of course they must have sold hundreds.’

  Claudio took another smaller packet from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘We have dried them carefully but might you recognize these bus tickets and a receipt for a sandwich?’

  Emma was trembling as she took them. ‘I can’t vouch for the bus tickets. They could be anyone’s but yes, the sandwich receipt is mine. Look at the date and the time, when I left the office two days ago. Where did you find the raincoat?’

  ‘It was on the body of a young girl found drowned in the canal yesterday morning. We do not know who she was, maybe one of the many homeless or street girls.’

  ‘How awful. But I lost my raincoat at the airport.’

  ‘That is possible,’ said Claudio Morelli. ‘Many things are lost at the airport. It is a losing place.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the girl. She could have kept the raincoat. I wouldn’t have minded if she needed it more than me.’

  ‘She did not have much choice. You see, signorina, the girl was murdered.’

  Emma swallowed hard. Murdered?

  six

  Emma was totally unprepared for the glorious sight ahead of her. Although she had travelled by launch up the Grand Canal several times now, taking in the Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque wonders of the Venetian palazzos, this Ca’ Pesaro was magnificent.

  The building was classical but the ornamentation was a riot of garlands, swags, cherubs, masks and rosettes. Massive blocks of stone, diamond-pointed, gave strength to the lower walls, those at the water’s blackened edge. The two upper floors had tall, recessed windows behind columns with semicircular heads. Light shone from every window with a shimmering reflection, dancing in the water.

  ‘Is this where we are going?’ she asked. ‘It’s amazing.’

  ‘This is the Ca’ Pesaro, the Gallery of Modern Art.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘It’s fantastic. It’s so big.’

  ‘It is three houses, made into one. The palazzo was donated to the city in 1907 by the family.’

  ‘We shall be here all night to see everything.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Marco drily.

  When they left the vaporetto, they walked along a path close to an inner canal and over a red-bricked bridge to the back of the palazzo. The entrance was a huge doorway with high, wrought-iron doors which dwarfed every visitor, even Marco. The great doors opened out onto a courtyard with an ornate stone well dominating the centre, surrounded by slabs of black and white marble paving.

  ‘I can’t stop saying wow!’ said Emma.

  The lobby stretched forever, with busts of past doges high on the walls, stone benches for the weary to sit on and a flooring of beige and white marble. In the centre was a famous piece of contemporary statuary to remind everyone that this was the Gallery of Modern Art.

  ‘I believe it is on loan,’ Marco murmured. ‘Big insurance.’

  It was as grand and ornate upstairs. They went up a sweeping stairway to the first floor where tonight’s showing was taking place. A new artist was making his debut into the art scene of Venice and he was easy to spot, pacing the floor nervously, pretending not to look at people’s faces and their reactions.

  A waiter offered a tray of champagne. Emma politely took a flute. It was freshly poured and still bubbling.

  ‘You need not drink it,’ said Marco. ‘Just sip.’ He sniffed the aroma. ‘Not my Prosecco,’ he added. ‘Inferior.’

  Emma drew her breath in sharply as Marco escorted her into the first-floor room. It looked indeed like the inside of a palace with high ornate ceilings, gilded cornices, tall windows framed with white brocade curtains and gold sashes. The polished parquet flooring was a herringbone pattern. There was not one but several translucent chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, light sparkling from the crystal teardrops, illuminating the scene below.

  ‘Take your time,’ said Marco. ‘We have all evening. This must have been the main reception salon, now perfect for an art exhibition. You will be warm,’ he added, taking her woollen coat and handing it to a waiter.

  It disappeared somewhere. Emma hoped she would get it back. The cream lace tunic and black trousers were perfect, casual and comfortable, but elegant. Many of the women were overdressed, wearing sleek couture dresses and coats, dripping with jewels. Some of the younger women had not bothered at all and were still in their daytime jeans a
nd T-shirts. But they still had that effortless, smooth cosmopolitan Venetian look.

  Marco looked magnificent, so tall and powerful. He stood out among the crowd and many of the women slid sly glances at him, wondering if he was available. Emma made no move to look possessive but she noticed that Marco kept closely to her side.

  ‘Promise to protect me from the pack of female wolves if they approach,’ he said in an aside. ‘I am not in the market.’

  ‘I’m sure you might meet a very pleasant lady here,’ said Emma. ‘Someone who shares your interest in art. A nice dinner companion.’

  ‘My only interest is seeing the paintings through your eyes,’ he said enigmatically.

  The artist’s big paintings meant nothing at all to her. They were vast canvases with some splodges of paint, or stripes or dots. More like samples of modern wallpaper. Emma made no comment but moved on to a collection of smaller watercolours which were displayed down the centre of the room. They were exquisite. Fragments of an old Venice, a shadow, a courtyard, a bridge, an old woman selling flowers. Most of them were A4 size, as if the artist had bought a bargain pad of 140 gram drawing paper from a shop and wandered round Venice with it tucked under his arm and a palette of paints in his pocket.

  ‘This is his minimalistic mood,’ she murmured.

  ‘You like these?’

  ‘Very much.’

  She was sipping the champagne. Marco had barely touched his. She could imagine him pouring it into a pot plant, like in an American film. She smiled at the thought. He caught the smile.

  ‘You like it here?’

  ‘Very much,’ she said again. ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘I’m glad. I want you to enjoy Venice, to think of it as part a holiday, not all that work, work, work as in your smoky London office. It cannot be good for you, all that close work. I see you wear glasses.’

  ‘For close work, yes. But you also work very hard. It’s the same.’

  Marco shook his head. ‘But I love my work. I love my vineyards, the smell of the grape and making the good Prosecco. I bring much happiness to many people. Does your work make people happy?’

  Emma had to admit that her work did not make people happy. ‘I bring order to their lives. Maybe that gives them a form of contentment.’

  ‘Clever answer. Now, signorina of the orderly life, what do you think of this disorder?’ They were standing in front of a huge canvas covered in scattered stripes of red and yellow, put on thickly with a big brush. It did not look like anything, maybe a seaside deckchair for a giant.

  ‘It is called Sunset. Does it look like a sunset to you?’

  ‘The colours are right for a sunset,’ she admitted.

  ‘So the artist is nearly there,’ said Marco with a straight face.

  Now they were sharing an amusement and the feeling was almost as good as when his arms were round her and he was taking possession of her mouth. She felt his hand slide over hers, fingers long and cool, clasping hers lightly.

  ‘I see another she-wolf approaching,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Protect me, please.’

  A woman was walking towards them purposefully. She was wearing a slinky, emerald-green silk trouser suit and strapped heels so high, it was a wonder she could walk. Her blonde hair was piled into a smooth roll on the top of her head and held there with emerald clips. Her make-up was flawless.

  ‘Marco,’ she said, her brilliant blue eyes flashing. ‘You have not been to see me for ages and ages. My life is empty without you. I have missed you.’

  ‘Emma, may I introduce the Countess Raquel Benedetti? Her family history goes way back. This is Signorina Emma Chandler, my English accountant.’

  Emma noticed the way Marco rolled the Countess’s name as if he was chewing it and then spitting it out.

  ‘Accountant? Is that what they call it these days?’ Her scarlet bowed lips curled in derision. Her eyes swept up and down, pricing Emma’s clothes, with a sort of velvet languor.

  ‘It is a responsible job,’ said Emma coolly. ‘Do you work?’

  ‘Work? What is this odd word? No, my family would never allow me to work. It is so degrading. Besides, I have my own fortune.’

  ‘You are fortune-ate,’ said Emma, finishing the conversation with a neat play on the same word.

  ‘I am having a small dinner party tomorrow night. Only the best people in Venice. You will come, yes?’ Raquel turned her back, was talking to Marco. It was more of a command than an invitation. Her eyes moved to Emma. ‘You could bring your little friend.’

  ‘How very kind of you, Raquel,’ said Marco smoothly. ‘But I am afraid we have other plans for tomorrow night. Plans that cannot be changed, even for you.’

  It was the first Emma had heard of any plans.

  ‘What a pity. Then I will telephone you and make another time when you do not have other plans.’ She reached up and planted a kiss on Marco’s cheek. It left a smudge of lipstick.

  ‘Ciao,’ she said and sailed across the room towards a different man.

  Marco steered Emma into a different salon. Here were sculptures, some large and imposing and some so small that Emma wished she had brought her glasses. Marco was staring up at a thin and beautiful angel whose wings seemed so fragile it was difficult to believe that they were carved from stone.

  ‘Dreadful woman,’ he said, wiping away the lipstick with a tissue.

  ‘She seemed to know you.’

  ‘She wishes she knew me. But no luck for her. I have no time for these predatory women with nothing to do but find new men for their amusement. I am not fudder for her appetite.’

  ‘Fodder,’ corrected Emma.

  Marco grinned and wrapped his arm round her waist. ‘So has my young friend had enough of culture? I think it is time to begin the amusement of the evening. Will you be my fodder?’

  Emma broke into a giggle, then hushed herself as people turned and looked at them. They would not complain. Marco was too authoritative and powerful-looking for anyone to dare cross him. And too handsome, thought Emma. He was the best-looking man in the salon. Even with a lot of competition from the sophisticated clientele at the art gallery.

  ‘What do you suggest?’ she asked.

  ‘I would like to take you for an evening stroll round Venice and we will eat snacks and drink a glass of wine at a little café and behave like the other tourists.’

  ‘I would like that,’ said Emma, glad that she had put on her own shoes for walking round Venice.

  ‘There is a ladies’ room over there, not so old as the palazzo. Venice does not have many in the streets. I will meet you downstairs in the entrance courtyard.’

  Then he was gone, striding away without a backward glance. Emma sipped some more of her champagne before she returned her glass to a convenient counter. The ladies’ room was updated twenty-first century, nothing medieval or draughty.

  Marco was waiting downstairs with her long woollen coat over his arm, which he had retrieved from somewhere. He helped her into it.

  ‘Ready to go?’

  She nodded, not letting him know how much the familiar gesture affected her. For a moment he was close, his hand guiding the coat over her shoulders, her arms into the sleeves, momentarily brushing her skin. His breath fanned her cheek, his eyes concentrating on each movement.

  Marco wondered at his own self-control. He was so close to her, the sweet perfume of her skin rising to him like intoxicating wine. How could he keep his hands off her? When all he wanted was to take her in his arms and kiss away all breath from her lips, crushing any protest with the passion of his embrace.

  ‘Damn the coat,’ he said for no reason.

  So began an evening of more magic as they walked the bridges and streets of Venice, in and out of alleyways, up and down steps, stopping now and then to look in some brightly lit shop window at very expensive goods, stopping at peddlers’ street stalls to bargain over some trifle.

  Emma bought a snow paperweight. It was a crude plastic replica of a palazzo that was hidde
n in snow on shaking. It would sit on her desk in London, to remind her of this starry evening. The sky was as black as pitch, yet the stars were brighter than diamonds.

  ‘You paid him too much,’ said Marco.

  ‘I wanted it, as a souvenir.’

  ‘Always start at half their price.’

  ‘I am not used to bargaining.’

  ‘You are not used to living, signorina.’

  Emma knew that was true. She was not used to living like this, walking through a magical city built on the sea, with the most handsome man in Venice walking by her side, taking her hand if it was a high step or an abrupt corner.

  She knew she was lost, not only in this maze of streets, but in the maze of her own emotions.

  But some of the back streets were reeking of decay, dark and crumbling, stacked with uncollected refuse. Some of the canals smelt of refuse. Emma would hate to be lost in them, long shadows like ghosts of the past. She moved closer to Marco.

  ‘I took this short cut on purpose to show you,’ said Marco. ‘Venice is not all grand buildings. It is sinking into the sea, a millimetre or so a year. And we are overwhelmed with the smell of rotting stuff. I long all the time to escape to the countryside, to my beautiful vineyards.’

  ‘It’s hard to get used to the smell.’ And it seemed everyone wore perfume, even the men. Marco did not but there was always a freshness about his skin that was the result of expensive bath products. She could breathe it into her lungs without shame.

  ‘I shall take you to my vineyards for the fresh air. You will breathe the real Italian air. I have a family house there, an old farmhouse. You will stay.’

  Marco did not ask. He just said you will come, you will stay. No argument, no discussion. He was used to getting his own way.

  They wandered along the waterway fronts, ate a snack from a counter here, drank a glass of wine from a counter there. It was so different from the formal meal of the evening before. Marco knew his city well and it was not always dry history, or wet history. He described the great flood of 1966, when there was so much destruction.

  ‘People saw their belongings floating away on the water. And many valuable manuscripts and books were lost. It was sad.’