The Lizard's Bite Part 21

"Leo," said a voice from outside his world, a female voice, warm, attractive, one that possessed a name, though it escaped him at that moment, since he was the child-Leo, not his older self. "Please."

The mechanism on the wall whirred. The cuckoo's artificial bellows roared, the old chime tolled.

"I need need you to live," she pleaded. you to live," she pleaded. "Leo . . ." "Leo . . ."

As if it were a matter of choice. Both Leos-the child and the man-knew nothing was quite that simple. In order to live, he had to look, which was the last thing he wanted to do. Ever.

AS LEO FALCONE DREAMED, SOME UNCONSCIOUS PART of him listening to his own inner voices and the caring tones of Raffaella Arcangelo penetrating from the world beyond, a sleek white speedboat crossed the wide ca.n.a.l between the hospital and San Michele, its varnished wooden prow aimed towards the open northern lagoon. The bright day was dying now, the last of the sun turning the water into a lake of burnt gold. Hugo Ma.s.siter sat in the back of the vessel opening a bottle of vintage champagne with a familiar ease. Emily Deacon remained opposite on the soft calfskin seats, weary after a fruitless day spent on the private yacht moored by the Riva degli Schiavoni, trying to recall more details of her training back in Langley. of him listening to his own inner voices and the caring tones of Raffaella Arcangelo penetrating from the world beyond, a sleek white speedboat crossed the wide ca.n.a.l between the hospital and San Michele, its varnished wooden prow aimed towards the open northern lagoon. The bright day was dying now, the last of the sun turning the water into a lake of burnt gold. Hugo Ma.s.siter sat in the back of the vessel opening a bottle of vintage champagne with a familiar ease. Emily Deacon remained opposite on the soft calfskin seats, weary after a fruitless day spent on the private yacht moored by the Riva degli Schiavoni, trying to recall more details of her training back in Langley.

An Alitalia jet whined overhead, making its descent into the airport that lurked at the distant water's edge, forever growing, eating away a little more of the wild marshland each year. Emily waited for the roar of its engines to subside, then took the fluted gla.s.s, tasted the chilled vintage Dom Perignon, telling herself that she would drink one gla.s.s and one gla.s.s alone, then leaned back, letting her blonde hair reach into the slipstream created by the vessel's gathering speed, aware that Hugo couldn't take his eyes off her.

"Where are we going exactly? I'm used to getting directions."

"You can leave the directions to me. We're going to the Locanda Cipriani. Torcello. You've never been?"

She'd heard of the place. Hemingway had written much of Across the River and into the Trees Across the River and into the Trees there, in between duck hunts and drinking sessions. She'd read the book as a teenager, while going through her Hemingway phase. It was the unlikely story of a romance between a dying middle-aged American colonel, scarred by the war, and a young, beautiful Italian countess. A love that was returned. She hadn't needed to dip into the biographies to understand that Hemingway had been telling his own story, recounting the growing fears and disappointments of age, trying to convince himself they could be balanced, if not countered entirely, by the presence of a teenager who was willing to have s.e.x with him in a gondola at night. It was a lecherous old man's fantasy, and the tragedy was that Hemingway hoped in vain to conceal that fact from everyone, most of all himself. there, in between duck hunts and drinking sessions. She'd read the book as a teenager, while going through her Hemingway phase. It was the unlikely story of a romance between a dying middle-aged American colonel, scarred by the war, and a young, beautiful Italian countess. A love that was returned. She hadn't needed to dip into the biographies to understand that Hemingway had been telling his own story, recounting the growing fears and disappointments of age, trying to convince himself they could be balanced, if not countered entirely, by the presence of a teenager who was willing to have s.e.x with him in a gondola at night. It was a lecherous old man's fantasy, and the tragedy was that Hemingway hoped in vain to conceal that fact from everyone, most of all himself.

"Tell me about Laura Conti," she said. Hugo had spent the afternoon away from the yacht, locked in a series of seemingly endless meetings with lawyers, advisers and the Arcangeli brothers. This was the first real opportunity she'd had to start pus.h.i.+ng some questions his way. "I'm the curious type."

Hugo raised his gla.s.s. "And I'm the indiscreet type, as I told you. Except . . ."

He glanced towards the low island in the distance and then his watch. "Dinner at the Locanda. It's been such a long time. And now there's so much to celebrate."

"Except what?"

His smile fell for a second. He stared at her with a sudden, brutish frankness. "Intimacies require intimacy. I'm no fool, Emily."

She placed the gla.s.s, two-thirds full, on the polished walnut table that sat between them. Ma.s.siter's temporary home had been a place of some interest for her. The yacht's crew, mainly men, with women for waiting and cleaning duties alone, were either Croatian or, in the case of the menials, Filipino. There was a small locked office on the lowest floor, down a narrow set of stairs, beneath the eight cabins, the largest of which-Ma.s.siter's-occupied the prow. The vessel was, he said, rented, a necessary evil between selling his last apartment on the Grand Ca.n.a.l to raise funds for the Isola degli Arcangeli project and moving into his new home there. He wasn't happy in the yacht, though its opaque smoked windows kept out the curious glances of the tourists on the broad and busy waterfront leading from the Doge's Palace to the a.r.s.enale. There had to be a reason he would have chosen a home like this, and that, surely, lay in the small office. She recalled the locked room in the apartment he had built for himself in the palace on the island. He had a fondness for small, dark places in which to hide things. It was simply a question of penetrating them.

"I told you last night. Nic and I had a fight. I needed somewhere to stay, Hugo. Don't read more into it than that."

She thought about Nic, who by now should have cleared the little apartment in Castello. He and Peroni had found some expensive temporary accommodation, two bedrooms, one little kitchen, in one of the narrow streets in working-cla.s.s Castello, squeezed between the Via Garibaldi and the Biennale Gardens. There would be no free police apartment in Venice again. No secret moments in the tiny bed squeezed between the door and the window that gave out onto a pink-washed street crisscrossed with was.h.i.+ng lines. And instead, what? She'd seen the expression on Nic's face when he left. It was grim and determined and utterly single-minded. Nic needed to bring Ma.s.siter to justice, for Leo's sake. There was a debt lurking there, demanding repayment. Without that, she wondered how he could ever be easy with himself.

"People who need somewhere to stay generally take their custom to hotels," Ma.s.siter said. "You came to me. Why, Emily?"

She was uncertain how to handle him. Hugo Ma.s.siter was a mix of contradictions: wily in the ways of the world, yet almost innocent when it came to anything that touched his ego.

"I thought that was what you wanted. I was curious to see if I was right."

He was watching her avidly, judging, avaricious too. "Does he know you're with me?"

"No . . ."

She reached for the gla.s.s and drained it in two quick gulps, not even fighting the temptation. He was there with a refill the moment it left her lips. It was all a question of confidence. That was what the men in Langley said. A matter of building trust. Of lies and skilled deceit.

"Is it important?" she asked. "I knew I wasn't going to get the door slammed in my face. Or did you really think I could be your architect?"

This amused him. "Why not? If it doesn't work, I'll find someone else. I've got the money now and money solves everything. Or at least I will will have the money once I sign with the Arcangeli. After that . . . the island's perfect, just the thing I need to get me back on my feet." have the money once I sign with the Arcangeli. After that . . . the island's perfect, just the thing I need to get me back on my feet."

She wondered about the details of the deal. They could be important. "Were you really that close to the edge?"

"d.a.m.n right," he moaned. "More than anyone knows. I still am until I have the Arcangeli's signature on the contract. Though I don't expect that to be a problem now. Tomorrow night. Six o'clock. It's done. A little ceremony in that beautiful dining room of theirs. Which will be my my dining room afterwards." dining room afterwards."

"I thought the Arcangeli were going to keep part of the house. You'd live in the apartment."

He snorted. "You didn't really believe that, did you? Does the master live in the servants' accommodation? I think not. There are a few changes to the contract that Michele has yet to comprehend. But he will. When I buy that island, it's mine. No strings. No caveats. I can do what I like. A hotel. An apartment block. Stores."

"And the Arcangeli?"

He looked at her, disappointed. "They'll have capital. They need this deal badly. Their debts are now impossible to ignore."

Nic had told her exactly what he'd come to see as the Arcangeli's real concern. They wanted a second chance to continue to make gla.s.s, a way to keep their art.

"A livelihood. A working foundry, where they feel they belong. I thought that was important to them."

"It's important to Michele. Uriel never gave a d.a.m.n. Gabriele does as he's told. The sister's neither here nor there. They can take the cash. Open a bar. Dream their dreams. Do what the h.e.l.l they like. Provided . . ."

He licked his lips. There were still some doubts here.

"Provided what?"

"Nothing you need worry about," he replied curtly. "There's a little . . . tidying necessary before tomorrow night. But I'm a tidy man. I can deal with that. No lawyer can throw a spanner in the works. It was messier than I'd expected, but that happens."

"And after tomorrow night?"

He grinned. The broad, coa.r.s.e gesture changed his face, made his features exaggerated, ugly.

"After that I prosper! More than ever. The auction business is as flat as this d.a.m.n lagoon, but property . . . That island's worth ten times what I'm paying them. I can get any number of backers to redevelop that place just by picking up the phone. So could the Arcangeli if they hadn't been so arrogant. There's only one industry here now and that's cramming as many gullible tourists into the streets as possible and fleecing them blind. No one wants gla.s.s. No one wants art, not real art anyway. The Arcangeli never learned that lesson. They tried to fool themselves it was different for them. It isn't."

"They wanted to keep a little pride in themselves," she objected.

"That's the first thing that goes out the window," he retorted. "The leisure industry . . ." Ma.s.siter pulled a pained face as he p.r.o.nounced the word in the American style . . . lee lee-sure. " . . . has no place for self-worth. It's money and money alone. Bring 'em in, send 'em home poorer, then get some more patsies to take their place."

He waved a hand back at the city, then poured himself another gla.s.s and relaxed back onto the leather seats.

"That's all Venice has left these days," he continued, clearly enjoying the lifting resonance of his own voice. "This isn't a real place anymore. It's just a trickle-down town, somewhere people are either dropping crumbs or picking them up. The young know it, which is why they're fleeing to the mainland. Can you blame them? Who wants to live in a museum? In twenty years there'll scarcely be a real Venetian left. The smart ones will have gone to earn real money elsewhere. The trash will be working in some vacuum-cleaner factory in Mestre, glad they own a car and can bring home the shopping in that instead of lugging it through the streets. Venice is just an old dead wh.o.r.e who manages to fetch a price on what's left of her looks. Anyone who forgets that is just an idiot romantic. And romantics lose perspective in the end. It can cost them everything."

He called to the man in the white uniform, working the wheel in the open cabin up front. "No speeding, Dimitri. Let's make a leisurely time of it across the lagoon."

The roar of the engine dimmed to a steady drone. Hugo flicked a switch by the side of the drinks cabinet. A spotless canvas roof began to unfurl itself from beneath the upper deck, stretching along the runners of the main cabin, hiding them from the burnished sky. After a second or two, all she could see was the grey line of the lagoon moving steadily past the narrow side windows, the occasional floating gull, and the nets of the few fishermen still working the waters.

He came over and sat next to her, then, in a swift, earnest gesture, kissed the naked skin of her shoulder. She thought of Hemingway's ghost, dreaming about finding an escape from the steady progression of the years with a young girl, locked together in a gondola rocking on the greasy lagoon waves.

"The question of intimacy will not go away," Hugo murmured in her ear, his hand playing gently across her left breast.

The soft leather seats, the lapping of the lagoon against the hull . . . she fought to chase the images of what might be from her mind.

Then Emily shuffled herself away from his grasp, hung her head, determined to make sure she got this right, because Hugo Ma.s.siter was no fool.

"Not yet," she murmured. "I'm not ready, Hugo. I'm sorry."

"When?" he asked, a brute flatness in his voice.

"What is this?" she snapped. "Are we making appointments?"

"You came to me," he reminded her.

"Perhaps you should turn the boat around. I need some s.p.a.ce."

"s.p.a.ce."

He went back to the other side of the cabin, flicked the switch, waited for the canvas roof to withdraw back into the hull, then barked at the boatman in a rattle of indecipherable Venetian dialect.

The boat picked up speed, the nose jerked skywards again.

"Of course," he murmured.

A flicker of alarm sounded in her head. Something was wrong. Maybe she was a bad actor. Maybe . . .

His phone rang. Ma.s.siter went forward to the open wheelhouse, out of earshot.

Emily tried to picture herself in the cla.s.sroom at Langley. They'd had that all-important conversation just a couple of times, handled it briefly, professionally, not quite looking one another in the eye. Hoping, she understood, it would never come to be asked in anger.

How far would you go to get something vital, something you-or one close to you-desperately needed?

Would you torture a man to stop a bomb blowing up in a school? Would you murder someone to keep a hostage from dying?

There were no easy answers. Except when it came to personal matters. If it had a chance of success, would you hand over something that couldn't hurt, not physically, something most of us gave away for free anyway, sometimes to people we never loved, to strangers even?

They'd all said yes to that one. It seemed selfish, somehow, to countenance any other outcome.

She thought of Falcone, of Nic, Peroni, and Teresa, and the conversation the four of them had had that night on the terrace of the hospital, when all their doubts began to solidify into something that promised to turn into hard fact. It seemed so easy then to look each other in the eye and swear they'd not let the Venetians bury this particular case. Not when Leo Falcone lay somewhere between life and death in a bright white room overlooking the lagoon, in a place she could now see in the distance, rising and falling with the swell of the waves.

Ma.s.siter's low voice was indecipherable. In another lifetime she'd have had the devices that could penetrate his phone's electronic heart, recorded every whispered word he said. Now there was nothing but her own personal talents. Nothing beyond her fingertips. She hadn't heard a word.

He ended the call and came back to the cabin to sit across from her.

"You never stop, do you?" she commented.

"Never slow down, never grow old. You must allow me the odd fantasy." He looked grey and deadly serious at that moment. "I was," he added, "doing a little of what our builder friends call 'making good.'"

The cold eyes roved over her. "Tidiness is a virtue, Emily. And I like to think of myself as a virtuous man."

THEY ENTERED THE HOUSE AT NINE O'CLOCK THE FOLLOWING morning. It was in a quiet, shady residential street behind Gran Viale, the main shopping drag of the Lido, which ran from the vaporetto stop in a long straight line to the other side of the narrow island and the beaches, stretching out in front of the white whalelike colossus of the Grand Hotel des Bains. It was a weekday. Only a trickle of youngsters were heading for the sea, towels and swimsuits in their hands. Overhead the occasional small plane buzzed on the final approach to the little general aviation airport that sat at the northern tip of the Lido. morning. It was in a quiet, shady residential street behind Gran Viale, the main shopping drag of the Lido, which ran from the vaporetto stop in a long straight line to the other side of the narrow island and the beaches, stretching out in front of the white whalelike colossus of the Grand Hotel des Bains. It was a weekday. Only a trickle of youngsters were heading for the sea, towels and swimsuits in their hands. Overhead the occasional small plane buzzed on the final approach to the little general aviation airport that sat at the northern tip of the Lido.

Luca Zecchini, a man with an eye for property, reckoned the place, a small mansion in what was known on the Lido as "liberty style," all curlicues, outdoor steps and fancy windows, was worth a good million euros or more. Nic Costa didn't feel moved to argue. They needed some luck. It was now nine-thirty in the morning. Nic had heard nothing of importance from Teresa Lupo, nothing at all from Emily, and only received the briefest of messages from the hospital to say that Falcone's condition was unchanged. The one hard piece of news he had received came from Raffaella Arcangelo, via Teresa. The legal complications of the contract for the sale to Ma.s.siter had been resolved. There would be a brief signing ceremony that evening at six. Or so Hugo Ma.s.siter hoped.

The previous afternoon Zecchini and his men had worked hard to squeeze a warrant out of a Verona magistrate, one chosen for his discretion, since no one wanted details of the planned raid leaked. If they were lucky, the objects in Randazzo's home would prove interesting enough for Zecchini to demand an interview with the commissario himself, who was being kept discreetly out of view by the Venice Questura. From that point on they could, he hoped, begin to put the squeeze on Ma.s.siter. If Teresa did come up with something, all the better. Costa's theory was that, once Ma.s.siter was in custody on one charge, it would be easier to instigate a rolling set of investigations against him-over the Arcangeli deaths and, if he could just find the right breakthrough, in connection with the stalled investigation involving Daniel Forster and Laura Conti too. Maybe they wouldn't get the personal pleasure of sending the man down. But once the momentum was there, it would, surely, be impossible for Ma.s.siter to wriggle off the line.

If . . . they could a.s.semble enough material to make an arrest before Ma.s.siter claimed owners.h.i.+p of the island. Once the Arcangeli's names were on that piece of paper, they would not simply be hunting one man. They'd be challenging the entire hierarchy of the city, men who'd staked their reputations on clinching a deal to secure the future of the Isola degli Arcangeli-and sweep its recent murky financial past under the carpet. That made everything so much harder, perhaps too hard for a man like Luca Zecchini, who'd already stuck his neck on the block more than Costa expected. Power mattered in Venice. Costa understood that, and so, too, did Zecchini. Every failed attempt to tackle Ma.s.siter seemed to leave the Englishman more in control than before. They had little time to start the ball rolling, and few clear ideas on where Ma.s.siter's weak point might emerge. they could a.s.semble enough material to make an arrest before Ma.s.siter claimed owners.h.i.+p of the island. Once the Arcangeli's names were on that piece of paper, they would not simply be hunting one man. They'd be challenging the entire hierarchy of the city, men who'd staked their reputations on clinching a deal to secure the future of the Isola degli Arcangeli-and sweep its recent murky financial past under the carpet. That made everything so much harder, perhaps too hard for a man like Luca Zecchini, who'd already stuck his neck on the block more than Costa expected. Power mattered in Venice. Costa understood that, and so, too, did Zecchini. Every failed attempt to tackle Ma.s.siter seemed to leave the Englishman more in control than before. They had little time to start the ball rolling, and few clear ideas on where Ma.s.siter's weak point might emerge.

There were now eight Carabinieri officers in the grey, unmarked van, all armed, all good men, Nic thought. Zecchini had a.s.sembled only the ones he trusted most. They'd committed themselves to Venice for the entire day. And they didn't intend to go home empty-handed.

Hunched on the seat opposite Costa and Peroni, Zecchini eyed the two cops.

"Decision time, gentlemen," he said. "There's still room to get out of this. We could just walk away."

"Leave us the warrant then," Costa replied immediately. "Whatever happens, we're going in."

Zecchini shrugged his shoulders. "I hope Leo appreciates this one day." He patted the man next to him on the shoulder. "Avanti!" "Avanti!"

IT WAS A BRISK, professional operation. In the s.p.a.ce of four minutes they ascertained the house was empty, removed the front door, and were inside, wandering the big, airy rooms, admiring a residence that was surely beyond the scope of most senior police officers. Randazzo liked paintings. That surprised Nic Costa, though he couldn't help but wonder if it was really the commissario's wife's taste they were seeing here in the selection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century canvases, a handful of old religious icons and set upon set of antique j.a.panese prints. professional operation. In the s.p.a.ce of four minutes they ascertained the house was empty, removed the front door, and were inside, wandering the big, airy rooms, admiring a residence that was surely beyond the scope of most senior police officers. Randazzo liked paintings. That surprised Nic Costa, though he couldn't help but wonder if it was really the commissario's wife's taste they were seeing here in the selection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century canvases, a handful of old religious icons and set upon set of antique j.a.panese prints.

Luca Zecchini walked around examining what was there with a professional eye, taking photos, referring from time to time to some visual database he kept on a little palmtop computer in his jacket pocket. He didn't say a thing. He didn't look happy. Peroni was shooting Costa concerned glances. This wasn't their only opening, but it was, the two men had a.s.sumed, their best.

"Luca," Costa said when they'd been around every room on the ground floor, with the Carabinieri man shaking his head constantly. "What have we got?"

"I don't know," he muttered. "Maybe something. Maybe not. If I'm going to pull this guy in today, I need something positive. I can't just do it on suspicion. Even if this is illegal, it's minor stuff, the kind of things you'd buy from an antiques fair. Nothing terribly valuable. If we try to nail the b.a.s.t.a.r.d on this alone, he'll just feign ignorance. Say he bought it at some sale somewhere. It's going to be hard to prove otherwise."

"What about the icons?" Costa asked. "Don't you think they're Serbian?"

"Sure. But what does that tell us? Without positive identification, without proof of provenance, all we've got are suspicions. There's nothing here that raises any flags. When I get back to Verona, maybe. But that's going to take time. Don't get me wrong. I can work on the paintings. I just . . ." He was trying to soften the blow. "I can't give you anything straightaway. Sorry."

Peroni was scratching his head. "It wasn't just paintings," the big cop objected. "That may be all you saw two days ago, Nic. But there was more. Weird stuff."

Plenty of weird stuff, Costa thought, when he looked at the shelves. Oriental ceramics. Cloisonne vases and screens. Randazzo's home was a mishmash of styles, regions and eras that denoted a couple of uncertain tastes.

"The weirdest," Peroni said, "was in there."

He was pointing to a gla.s.s cabinet hidden in a corner near the fireplace, something Costa had never noticed.

Peroni walked over, opened the doors and returned with a small, very old statue. A squat, grinning figure in worn stone, seated cross-legged with a beaded necklace and an expression halfway between a Buddha's and a satyr's.

"It sort of stuck in my mind," Peroni explained, pointing to the huge erection which rose between the creature's legs.

Luca Zecchini took the object from him, turning it in his hands. Then the Carabinieri major gave the statue back to Peroni, pulled the palmtop out of his pocket and began to punch the b.u.t.tons. In just a couple of seconds he stopped, grinned at both of them, then turned the little screen round for them to see. It was a photo of something that looked very like Randazzo's object.

"Babylonian," he said. "Seen a few like this since Iraq fell."