Deep and Silent Waters

by Charlotte Lamb

  ‘Sebastian, the gondola has gone! How will we get back?’

  ‘The Contessa is ringing for a water-taxi now.’

  They walked out on to the landing-stage. Nico said, ‘Will you come tomorrow?’

  Sebastian looked sharply at her. She avoided meeting his eyes, and said, ‘I’m afraid my agent may have fixed up meetings for me. As so many important film people are here, you see, it is a chance to make valuable contacts. Can I let you know? I could ring you.’

  ‘I’ll ring you—’

  Sebastian interrupted, ‘Why don’t you come to us? Have breakfast with us at the hotel, Nico, in my suite – around eight?’

  ‘But I wanted to show Laura my studio and some of my work.’

  ‘Of course, but tomorrow will undoubtedly be difficult for her. I have an idea I want to talk to you about, and it involves Laura.’

  Nico stared at him. ‘Idea? What sort of idea?’

  ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. Eight o’clock at our hotel, then.’

  A motor launch chugged towards them, slowed, and drew up beside them. Nico took Laura’s hand and kissed it again, then helped her down into the boat. ‘Until tomorrow morning, then.’

  She nodded, sat down, and Sebastian joined her. Laura waved goodbye to Nico as the boat moved away slowly from Ca’ d’Angeli and he waved back, his black hair ruffled by a faint breeze. She put her hand down into the water, as she had when they arrived; the sun had set now but there was still plenty of light, and the reflections of the palazzi floated along beside the boat.

  Something else floated there, too. For a second she didn’t identify the wet black fir, and then she gave a stricken cry as she noticed the crimson leather collar around its neck.

  ‘Nico’s kitten!’ She leant over the side making the boat rock, and just managed to touch it, but the instant she did she knew it was dead.

  Chapter Four

  Melanie was furious. ‘Where on earth have you been all this time? I waited around for hours and then decided I’d missed you somehow, so I came back to the hotel, thinking I’d find you here. I was worried stiff. I thought you might have got lost. I was just about to get the hotel to ring the police and organise a search for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I ran into Sebastian.’

  As she had expected Melanie exploded at the news. ‘You’re kidding! You’ve been with that bastard? Are you crazy? No, don’t bother to answer that, I know you are. What have you been doing with him all this time? No, don’t answer that, either – I suppose you’ve been in his room.’

  Laura felt herself go scarlet and was angry enough to snap back, ‘We weren’t here at the hotel and we weren’t alone. He took me to see the house where he was born.’

  Melanie blinked furiously, her shoulders moving as if she was ruffling feathers, which made her look like an agitated parrot. ‘You mean he really was born here? And I always thought that must be a myth he invented for himself. Film people are always doing that, building their own legend because the truth about them is really pretty ordinary. So, what was the place like?’

  ‘Extraordinary. He hadn’t exaggerated by a hair, honestly. It was what he said it was, a palazzo, right on the Grand Canal, medieval. They call it Ca’ d’Angeli, the house of angels, because the outer walls are covered with them, such beautiful carving, little cherubs and tall stone archangels with these wonderful wings – it took my breath away.’

  ‘I thought nothing would ever surprise me again,’ Melanie said. ‘But it seems I was wrong.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Hang on, did you actually go inside? I mean, how do you know he wasn’t just spinning a line? How do you know he really was born there?’

  ‘You’re so cynical! We did go inside. I met the people who own it, the d’Angeli family. They’ve always lived there, since it was built, they’re Venetian aristocrats. His father worked for them – Sebastian isn’t one of the family. He just lived there with his parents.’ Laura saw the curiosity stirring in Melanie’s shrewd eyes and knew what questions were coming next so she hurried on before her friend could interrupt. ‘I met the two who are left, the Contessa d’Angeli and her son, Niccolo. He’s fabulous-looking, tall, dark and very sexy. He’s a sculptor. You should see the rooms, full of the most wonderful antiques and paintings and tapestries. Priceless, all of them. I was afraid to touch anything in case I broke it.’

  ‘I wish I’d been able to see the place,’ Melanie said discontentedly. ‘I suppose you just forgot you promised to meet me.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go with him but Sebastian kind of kidnapped me. I bumped into him and he persuaded me to go for a gondola ride with him and we ended up at Ca’ d’Angeli, which wasn’t what I’d intended at all.’

  Melanie stared at her. ‘Laura, have you forgotten what happened to his wife? Do you want to end up the same way?’

  Luckily they were in Laura’s room with the door shut, but Laura couldn’t help looking nervously around in case Melanie’s raised voice could be overheard. She lowered her own, scolding softly, ‘Mel, you mustn’t say things like that! Whatever you suspect, the inquest cleared Sebastian—’

  ‘On the evidence of that creepy secretary of his! She wouldn’t think twice about lying for him, you know that. I wouldn’t believe anything she said. No. He chucked his wife out of that window – everybody thinks he did it.’

  Agonised, Laura cried out, ‘Don’t say that! You know, if anyone overheard you and repeated what you’d said Sebastian could sue you for every penny you’ve got!’

  Luckily, the prospect of losing money had its usual effect on Melanie, who sighed and subsided. ‘There’s no justice. But it’s just as well I didn’t know you were with him – I’d have been far more worried and I might have said a damn sight too much in the bar while I was waiting. Stay away from him, Laura. If your sense of self-preservation doesn’t stop you, at least think of the bad publicity! People will talk, you know.’ She met Laura’s derisive eyes and had the grace to go a little pink, muttering, ‘Well, what can you expect? You don’t want people believing that you were the reason why he did it, do you?’ She held up her hand as Laura stirred angrily. ‘I know, I know, he’s as innocent as a newborn lamb. But that isn’t what people believe. So, promise me you won’t see him again.’

  ‘I’m having breakfast with him tomorrow,’ Laura told her flatly.

  ‘You’re what?’ Melanie went bright red.

  ‘In his suite. Nobody else will see us so you needn’t worry.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this! You need a full-time minder – do you know that? You are not meeting him, Laura. I won’t let you get involved with him again. In any case, I’ve already fixed a working breakfast at ten o’clock with Sam Beethoven – he never gets up any earlier, it was quite a concession he made in agreeing to be up by ten – and he could do so much for your career. He’s the most powerful producer at the festival. It shows how hot you’re getting that he wanted to meet you. And at half past eleven we’re having brunch on the terrace with some people from Hollywood. I’m not sure what’s behind their interest but they have a lot of clout and we don’t want to offend them. So you can ring Sebastian Ferrese and tell him your date with him is off.’

  ‘I can’t do that! And it isn’t a date, exactly, anyway. I’m meeting him at eight o’clock and it’s business.’

  ‘Oh, sure! Pull the other one, Laura. Sebastian Ferrese is a genius at mixing business and pleasure where women are concerned.’

  ‘Mel, he has a new project, a film he wants to make in Venice. Do you remember that big bestseller, The Lily, by Frederick Canfield? Set in Italy in the thirties and forties? It’s about a rich Italian family with two sons who both fall in love with the same girl and become deadly enemies over her.’

  ‘Never heard of it, but the storyline is as old as the hills.’

  ‘The difference with this book is that one brother is a Fascist and the other is a Communist, who later joins the partisans on the outbreak of war. The Fascist brother is ca
ptured by the partisans at the end of the war, and it’s his own brother who executes him.’

  ‘Sounds a jolly little tale – typical storyline for Sebastian Ferrese,’ Melanie muttered. Her stomach rumbled and she swore. ‘I’m dying for my dinner – get ready and let’s go down.’ She walked over to the mini-bar and opened it, studied the contents, chose a packet of potato crisps and a can of Diet Coke.

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Mel, don’t stuff that crap into yourself,’ Laura objected, as Melanie tore open the crisps. ‘You’ll ruin your appetite.’

  ‘Fuck off. And hurry up, will you?’

  Laura went into the bathroom, peeled off her sweat-slick clothes and dropped them into the laundry basket. The Italian heat was exhausting – why did they have the festival in August? Watching films in this appalling temperature, even in air-conditioned theatres, was no picnic, and walking about today she had felt as if she was in a sauna.

  She turned on the shower and stood under the jets of water. First an ice-cold sting her muscles, her nipples, her tensed shoulders and face, then the water changed gradually to lukewarm. She relaxed under it, eyes closed, breathing with delight as the moisture trickled down her hot body, oozed between her naked breasts, crawled down her flat midriff, the curve of her abdomen, along the creases of her inner thighs, down her legs to her toes.

  Laura turned slowly to sluice every part of herself in blissful sensuality. You never appreciated water until you were in a very hot country.

  That image was suddenly replaced by another: Niccolo’s dead kitten in the oil-slicked water of the Grand Canal. She had looked up at Sebastian, tears in her eyes. ‘I left it on the sofa in the salon. How could it have got into the canal?’

  ‘Its neck looks broken – it must have fallen out of a window.’ He sounded so offhand, but there was a darkness in his eyes that frightened her. Clea had fallen out of a window. Was that what he was thinking about?

  How had the kitten died? Nobody would want to kill a kitten. It must have been an accident. It must have climbed up to the window and fallen out.

  She had stared back at the palazzo vanishing into the dark blue night, lamps lit on the walls of the landing-stage, the upper windows of the salon glowing gold and pink. They were all closed, to keep out the mosquitoes and moths. The kitten couldn’t have fallen out.

  The kitten had been so small and soft; she thought of the fast beating of that tiny heart under her fingers, the stare of those milky blue eyes, and tears burned in her own.

  Sebastian said abruptly, ‘My mother died out here. She drowned, too. Soon afterwards we left Venice, my father and I, and went to the States.’ He looked round at her. ‘I want to make a film here. On location at Ca’ d’Angeli. It may exorcise some ghosts. And there’s a major role in it for you, Laura …’

  She heard Melanie bellowing from the bedroom for her to hurry and switched off the water, wrung out her hair and pinned it up deftly at the back of her head before she stepped out of the shower.

  She towelled herself dry rapidly and put on clean underclothes she had laid out in the bathroom cupboard, before she went back into the bedroom to find something to put on.

  Mel was turning Jancy upside down so that her dress fell over her head. ‘I see you still go around with this doll. When are you going to grow up?’

  Laura took Jancy away from her and put her gently in her accustomed position at the foot of the bed. ‘She’s the best friend a girl ever had. She never argues or criticises, just listens to whatever you want to tell her and nods sympathetically.’

  ‘Nods? What the hell is it with you? It’s a bloody doll! How can it nod?’

  Laura picked up Jancy and said, ‘She’s dumb, isn’t she, Jancy?’

  Jancy nodded.

  ‘See?’

  ‘You did that! I saw your finger at the back of her neck, moving her head up and down.’ But Melanie was grinning; she had enjoyed the joke. ‘I have to admit, I could do with someone like that in my office. A silent nodder. Wonderful.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a doll on your next birthday.’

  ‘Diamonds would be better.’

  ‘Dolls cost a lot less.’

  ‘Skinflint.’

  Barefoot, in a lace-trimmed white silk bra and matching lacy camisole, Laura went over to the wardrobe and flicked through her clothes while Melanie watched her.

  ‘The white dress, Laura. White always looks good on you – cools down all that red hair.’

  Laura took down the ankle-length silk dress, classic in style, with a halter neckline and low back, and let it slither down over her head, the folds clinging softly to her body as it fell almost to her feet.

  She stood back to survey the result. The dress gave her a very feminine line, emphasised every curve of her body, from her long neck to her breasts and on, down her shapely legs.

  ‘You look great,’ Melanie assured her.

  Laura smiled, sat down at the dressing table and blow-dried her hair into its accustomed style, then started on her foundation. She brushed a dust of the lightest gold glitter on her eyelids, curled her lashes with mascara.

  ‘Get a move on,’ implored Melanie, but Laura was not going to hurry because she did not want to start perspiring again. In this sultry night heat, you were wise to move as slowly as possible, especially if you were wearing a white silk dress that would show every tiny stain.

  ‘There’s plenty of time yet. Men expect women to be late. I haven’t finished explaining about Sebastian’s film. He wants to shoot some of it in Ca’ d’Angeli. He needs the Count’s permission, which is why Sebastian invited Nico to breakfast.’ She looked wryly into the dressing-table mirror at Melanie’s disapproving face. ‘You see? I’m not being set up for a seduction scene. I’m needed to help Sebastian persuade the Count to co-operate on this film.’

  Melanie sniffed scornfully. ‘He’s using you, in other words. As usual. And what’s in it for you?’

  ‘A starring role in a major film! That’s what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? He wants me to play the girl the brothers fight over, the one they call the Lily. She’s the central character and a lot happens to her. She’s raped by German soldiers, almost shot by partisans, her heart gets broken. You must see that this could be the break I need.’

  Melanie had that blank, fixed expression, which meant she was thinking intently. ‘Maybe,’ she mused. ‘It’s true, we’re looking for a big break for you. Your career has gone very well so far but if you’re ever to be a star you need to get a major part in a big commercial film, and this could be it. Okay. But if it means you getting involved with Sebastian Ferrese I’m not sure that the price isn’t too high. There’s an atmosphere around that man. I always have the feeling he’s bad luck, and not just because of his wife’s death. The man himself has an aura.’

  ‘A lot of directors are pretty weird. It’s a strange profession. Like acting. I know some truly crazy actors.’ Laura grinned at her teasingly. ‘And as for agents … I know one who should be certified.’

  ‘Yes – for having an idiot on my books who won’t listen to a word I say!’ Melanie grumbled. ‘Don’t come to me to complain if he chucks you out of a window next week.’ She marched to the door. ‘There’s no time to talk this through. Come on, we’ve got to get downstairs. It doesn’t hurt to keep men waiting, but I want my dinner. Now, be nice to these men! They could do a lot for you, and even if they don’t, making friends in high places is always a wise policy.’

  One eye on her watch, Valerie Hyde sat in her own room waiting impatiently for her mini-printer to finish churning out pages of notes she had earlier tapped into her lap-top computer.

  It had been easy enough to get permission to search the local newspaper files and, as she knew the month and year of the accident, she had had no trouble in finding the reports of the inquest on Sebastian’s mother. She had been given permission to use her lap-top to take notes, expecting it would take just a few minutes to transcribe the news reports. She certainly had not anticipated un
covering what increasingly began to look like an unsolved murder.

  She had continued to comb though months of files in the hope of discovering further information, but in vain: there was no report of anyone being arrested or even questioned, let alone charged or convicted of the death by drowning of Gina Ferrese. Valerie had considered approaching the Venice police for information, but had decided against that until she had had time to discuss the idea with Sebastian. He must have had some idea that there was a mystery attached to the way in which his mother died to have asked Valerie to go through the newspaper files. Perhaps it would be wiser not to probe too deeply yet, in case Sebastian already knew who had done it and wanted to keep it quiet.

  His father could have been behind the death – who else would have had reason to kill Gina Ferrese? Valerie knew Sebastian had been devoted to his father: he might go to great lengths to protect the memory of the dead man, and, after all, what would be the point of digging up a long-forgotten mystery when everyone concerned was now dead?

  When the printer finally stopped chattering, she collected the pages, put them in order and quickly read through her notes yet again.

  Did Sebastian know exactly how his mother had died? He had only been six. Had he known who died with her that day?

  He had rarely talked about his childhood or his background, and Valerie’s curiosity had been strongly aroused when she read the name of the man who was in the boat with Gina Ferrese. There was a lot more to this story than she had yet discovered – that much was certain – and, whether Sebastian wanted it or not, Valerie was determined to dig deeper.

  Sidney McKenna lifted his head to watch the latest arrivals in the bar, his eyes narrowing to slits. He had a throaty, whisky voice after years of sitting around in smoke-filled bars drinking and shouting to make himself heard above the clamour.

  ‘There’s Laura. You know, she’s growing into her looks. When we first found her she was a gawky kid, like a young foal, all big eyes and long legs. Look at her now.’