The Death Mask Murders

by Gabriel Farago

  Jack could see the pain on Lorenza’s face. ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘Unsettling echoes of the past, but I had to tell you. And I wanted to tell you first, alone.’

  ‘Thanks Jack. Very thoughtful of you. What do you think we should—’

  ‘Look at you two,’ said Tristan cheerfully as he stepped out onto the terrace. ‘Holding hands. And so early in the morning. I hope I’m not intruding.’ He was carrying a tray with a steaming plunger and a basket of fresh pastries, a tantalising aroma of fresh coffee hanging in the air as he put the tray on the table. ‘If I didn’t know better, I would now have to question my wife about the attractive man she’s with, while at the same time trying to control a jealous rage without spilling any of this. Coffee anyone?’

  Jack looked at Tristan gratefully, the unexpected humour a most welcome interruption to the earlier tension.

  Lorenza let go of Jack’s hand, got up and embraced Tristan. Then she kissed him passionately on the mouth.

  ‘Wow! What have I done to deserve this?’ Tristan looked at Jack and winked. ‘Italian wives. Who can ever work them out, eh?’

  ‘Sit down. Jack has something to tell you, darling.’

  ‘I can’t. I have to go and pick up the Carrigans. They’re on the early overnight train from London, remember? I’m late as it is.’

  ‘You stay; I’ll go.’ Lorenza took off her apron and put it on the back of the chair. ‘I haven’t had a spin in the boat for far too long anyway. Will do me good before we prepare for lunch.’

  ‘As you wish. I’ll stay with Jack and have breakfast, then.’

  ‘You do that – and listen carefully to what he has to say.’

  Lorenza blew Jack and Tristan a kiss and, adjusting her hair, hurried to the door.

  Lorenza fired up the two powerful two-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower Cadillac engines of the Riva Aquarama, enjoying the throb of the engines roaring into life. She guided the sleek boat away from the mooring under the palazzo, and then past moss-covered stone walls and through an iron-studded gate opening straight onto the canal. Once outside, the cold early morning air hit her like a blast from a freezer. Lorenza reached for Tristan’s green parker that he always kept under the steering wheel, and put it on. Slipping on the hood to keep warm, she waited for a gap in the traffic and then put on speed.

  The man watching the palazzo on the opposite side of the canal put down his binoculars and smiled. Then he reached for his phone and made a call.

  ‘He’s just come out and is on his way. If he takes the usual shortcut, we’ll do it now; clear?’

  ‘Understood. Everything’s in place. We are ready.’

  ‘You know what to do.’

  ‘I do.’

  How Lorenza loved that boat. It had belonged to her late brother and she had given it to Tristan as a wedding present after he had fallen in love with it. He could now drive it almost as skilfully as she. Enjoying the spray hitting her face, her wet cheeks glowing with excitement, Lorenza steered the boat expertly through a flotilla of small boats taking vegetables to market. Smiling, she ignored the rude hand signals of the boys sitting on the crates, and even waved back.

  I’ll take the shortcut, she thought, looking at her watch as the powerful boat roared past gondolas and vaporetti packed with morning commuters. Overtaking a water taxi at high speed, Lorenza lined up the boat for a sharp right-hand turn that would take her into a narrow side canal, which normally cut several minutes off the journey to the train station, especially during the chaotic morning traffic. The turn was a little tricky because she would have to navigate around a massive bridge pylon with only centimetres to spare, but Lorenza, an excellent driver, had done this countless times before and knew every inch of the way.

  ‘Here he comes now!’ the man standing on the bridge shouted into his phone. The man standing in the wheelhouse of a barge with a large crane on top, lowered the arm of the crane, virtually blocking the narrow entry into the canal next to the pylon. By the time Lorenza turned the corner and saw the steel arm in front of her, it was too late. With nowhere to go, the boat crashed at high speed into the massive piece of steel. Almost cut in half, the boat veered to the left, collided with the bridge pylon and burst into flames.

  Moments later, the man on the bridge made another phone call. ‘Done!’ he said. ‘There’s nothing left of the boat. No-one could have survived this.’

  ‘I knew I could count on you, Bohdan,’ said Alessandro and hung up.

  Satisfied, the man joined the crane driver, who had abandoned the stolen barge, and together they walked away from the inferno under the bridge.

  19

  The funeral, Venice: 19 October

  Lorenza’s sudden death had rocked Venice to the core, and a sense of gloom descended on the city that could be felt everywhere. People were shocked and found it difficult to accept the fact that Lorenza da Baggio, celebrated Top Chef Europe winner and pride of Venice, was no more.

  The official word was that Lorenza had been killed in a tragic boating accident. However, the authorities working frantically behind the scenes had a different view, but were reluctant to make it public until solid evidence was found to link Lorenza’s death to foul play. Instead, the city fathers proposed a traditional Venetian funeral with all the trimmings, to provide the grieving population an opportunity to say goodbye, and give Lorenza a memorable send-off befitting such a famous and much-loved local celebrity.

  Draped in a flag embroidered with the da Baggio family’s coat of arms, Lorenza’s coffin stood on a makeshift bier in the middle of the grand salon on the first floor of the palazzo. It looked like an island of sadness in a sea of spectacular flowers. Above the two marble fireplaces facing each other, the tall mirrors reaching up to the ornate ceiling decorated with precious frescoes made the room look twice the size.

  It was eleven in the morning and the last of the mourners filing past the coffin had left, leaving Jack and Tristan momentarily alone in the silent room. The pallbearers were due to arrive in half an hour to take the coffin down to the funeral gondola, which would take the coffin along the Canal Grande to the official service in the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, due to start at noon. Situated on an island in St Mark’s basin, this stunning Renaissance church had seen several funeral services for members of the illustrious da Baggio family over the years.

  Contrary to tradition the coffin was closed, because Lorenza’s face was so badly disfigured by the horrific injuries sustained in the accident – especially the fire – that she was virtually unrecognisable. Instead, a lovely photo showing a smiling Lorenza in her beloved kitchen stood on the lid, a sobering reminder of the precious, fleeting moments of life, and the certainty of death.

  Tristan stared at the coffin in silence.

  ‘How are you, mate?’ asked Jack and reached for Tristan’s hand.

  ‘Numb. I can’t feel anything. And when it really mattered the other day, I couldn’t feel anything either. Nothing. I couldn’t even warn her! How do you explain that?’

  ‘I can’t. But things don’t work that way, do they? We are but instruments of fate, aren’t we? You of all people know that.’

  ‘Little comfort right now.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘It’s difficult to comprehend that only a year ago, Lorenza and I stood here in this very room after our wedding in the Vatican. Married in the Sistine Chapel by the pope himself on the same day, surrounded by friends and family. It was all like a fairytale.’

  ‘It was that,’ said Jack, remembering that extraordinary day in September the year before. They had just returned from Rome after the intimate, private wedding attended by only close family. The wedding – a thank-you gesture by a grateful pontiff – had to be held early in the morning, before the tourists arrived to admire Michelangelo’s timeless masterpiece.

  Dressed in his Sunday finest, the gardener had met them at the jetty near Marco Polo airport with the very boat Lorenza had been killed in. The boat, and two others borrowe
d from friends, had been decorated with colourful garlands, giving the ride home along the Grand Canal the festive air of a wedding procession, Venice-style. Yet a few moments from now, Lorenza would begin a different journey along the same canal. It would be her last journey, taking her to her final resting place next to her ancestors in the Cimitero de San Michele.

  ‘I still can’t quite believe this is happening,’ said Tristan. ‘It’s like a bad dream, and I will wake up in the morning after a restless night, covered in sweat, but relieved that the nightmare is over. Only this time, the nightmare is real and just beginning.’

  Jack squeezed Tristan’s hand. ‘We’ll get through this. Today will be the worst. The funeral service with all those people in the church will be tough. The pope even sent one of his cardinals to officiate. That’s how much he thought of Lorenza.’

  Tristan looked at Jack standing next to him. ‘Thanks, Jack.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For being you.’

  Jack gazed at Lorenza’s coffin. Momentarily overcome by the sadness of the moment, tears began to well up from somewhere deep within, clouding his vision. His vision may have been blurred, but something he had felt for a long time couldn’t have been clearer: he realised that time was precious and life uncertain at best, and certain things had to be said before it was too late and the opportunity lost forever, overtaken by the relentless march of time.

  ‘I’ve wanted to say this for a long time,’ said Jack quietly, his voice quivering with emotion.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Thanks, Tristan.’

  ‘What for?’

  Searching for the right words, Jack took his time before replying. He realised that these would perhaps be the most important words he would ever say to Tristan.

  ‘For being the son I never had.’

  ‘Is that how you see me?’ whispered Tristan.

  ‘I do.’

  Without saying a word, Tristan turned to Jack and embraced him. Banished by love, the crushing pain and sadness that only moments earlier had all but overwhelmed Tristan, began to lift. The healing had begun.

  Because it was almost time to leave, Countess Kuragin had been looking for Jack all over the palazzo, to finalise the funeral arrangements. She had arrived the day after the accident and taken charge of the situation. Leonardo da Baggio, Lorenza’s father, had been walking the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage trail in Spain, at the time, and had been difficult to contact. He arrived a day later, devastated, and was greeted by a grieving household preparing for a funeral.

  The countess opened the heavy wooden door leading into the salon and was about to go inside when she saw Jack and Tristan locked in a silent embrace in front of Lorenza’s coffin. Deeply moved, she stopped, tiptoed out of the room and quietly closed the door.

  Expertly manoeuvred by six oarsmen, the large, ornate black funeral gondola with its sad-looking wooden angel at the prow, slowly approached the palazzo and tied up at the front steps. It had rained during the night and a dense fog hovered over Venice like a shroud, giving the facades of the palazzos along the canal an ethereal, ghostlike appearance. Moments later, the heavy medieval, iron-studded wooden double doors leading into the palazzo opened as the bells of Venice began to toll, giving the signal for the funeral procession to begin.

  Carried by six pallbearers – Tristan and Lorenza’s father at the front, followed by Jack and three of the chefs, all close friends of the family, working in Lorenza’s beloved restaurant kitchen – the coffin left the da Baggio home and was carefully lowered onto the funeral gondola to begin its final journey first to the church, and then to the cemetery island.

  Surrounded by hundreds of spectators, Cardinal Borromeo and his entourage of senior clergy – all dressed in ceremonial finery – waited in front of the church for the gondola to arrive. This was a great honour bestowed on the deceased, who was clearly held in high esteem by the Church.

  Those familiar with Lorenza’s role two years earlier in saving the pope’s life, would not have been surprised. Nor would they have been surprised by the presence of Cardinal Borromeo, because the cardinal had been instrumental in facilitating the pope’s treatment and recovery. He was the one who had brought Lorenza to Rome and had persuaded her to cook for the pontiff. The ancient Ottoman dish with its medicinal properties – Hunkar Begendi – which had saved the pope’s life and had become an overnight culinary sensation, still featured as a signature dish in Lorenza’s restaurant, because taking it off the menu would have caused diner outrage and a serious patron riot.

  First, Cardinal Borromeo blessed the coffin as soon as it arrived, and then led the funeral procession into the church packed with mourners. Venetians loved pomp, and had arrived in droves just after daybreak to secure a place inside the church, and so be part of what was viewed as a rare, historic occasion not to be missed.

  As expected, the music inside was uplifting and impressive. A chamber orchestra and large choir supported the booming organ as the cardinal entered, walked slowly down the aisle, and then opened proceedings by reading a personal message from the pope himself. This raised the ceremonial bar to dizzying heights, which all fortunate enough to witness this recognised instantly.

  After excerpts from Mozart’s Requiem, and a moving eulogy by Lorenza’s grieving father, which had many reach for their handkerchiefs to wipe away tears, the coffin left the church. Followed by the cardinal and his entourage, it was carried down the stairs to the waiting funeral gondola to begin the final leg of its journey to the isle of the dead. Many choked with emotion as they watched the cardinal make the sign of the cross before the funeral gondola was slowly rowed away, and disappeared into the mist.

  As soon as the gondola was out of sight, excited chatter and joviality erupted as the mourners returned to the realm of the living and prepared to go to lunch, as tradition demanded. They would lift a glass or two in memory of the deceased, who had just been farewelled in such a spectacular fashion, and celebrate her life. In Italy, funerals and food were inextricably intertwined. This was especially the case when the deceased was a famous culinary icon like Lorenza.

  Back at the Palazzo da Baggio, the restaurant staff had insisted on putting on a wake – a spectacular lunch that would have made Lorenza proud. The Osman’s Kitchen dining room had been transformed into a festive reception area fit more for a wedding celebration than a wake, with long tables for ten or more, and abundant flowers to add cheer to the occasion.

  Cardinal Borromeo and numerous city dignitaries had been invited, and several members of the chamber orchestra had agreed to provide the music in return for lunch, and copious quantities of excellent wine brought up from the da Baggio cellar.

  The countess walked up to Jack, who had just handed a glass of champagne to a bishop. ‘Can you believe this?’ she said and took him aside.

  ‘Only in Italy. But isn’t it great? Lorenza would have loved this. Sadness and joy, surrounded by food to ease the pain.’

  ‘I agree. Just look at them. How is Tristan?’

  ‘Coping. He knows how to deal with loss.’

  ‘And so do you.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Such is life.’

  ‘I saw you two embrace in front of Lorenza’s coffin,’ said the countess quietly. ‘I didn’t want to intrude ...’

  ‘It was a special moment.’

  ‘I could see that.’

  ‘How’s Leonardo coping?’ said Jack, changing the subject.

  ‘Not well. This is a catastrophe. He’s now lost both of his children. And in such dramatic circumstances.’

  ‘Will you stay with him here for a while?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I can’t leave him alone; not now. And I’ve asked Anna to come here with Billy. Will do her good and help her cope with the grief. She and Lorenza were close. She couldn’t face the funeral.’

  Jack looked at the countess and nodded. ‘I understand. Strange, how tragedy can make you see things clearly.’

  ‘What do you mean?
’

  ‘Another time, but I think this may apply to both of us.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Definitely. Look, there’s Cesaria. She made it after all!’

  ‘Yes. She was late and came directly to the church. Go and talk to her.’

  Jack walked over to Cesaria, standing in front of the fireplace by herself, away from the others. ‘I’m so glad you could come,’ he said and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Jack. I can’t express how I feel about this.’

  ‘I know, neither can I,’ said Jack and pointed into the room. ‘That’s why this here, is perhaps the best way to cope.’

  ‘You could be right. This is classic Italy. Grimaldi couldn’t come.’

  ‘I didn’t expect him to.’

  ‘It’s not what you think. He was devastated by the news. He couldn’t come, not because of work, but because he couldn’t show his face. Not here, not now.’

  ‘Come on ...’

  ‘I’m serious. You and I both know what happened here, and why. The local authorities are pussyfooting around at the moment, but sooner or later it will come out. This was a Mafia hit, arranged by Alessandro, and that’s why Grimaldi couldn’t come. He feels responsible.’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’

  ‘Not to him. Does the family know?’

  ‘Only Tristan.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly tell Leonardo. Not now,’ said Jack.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Grimaldi sends his sincere condolences.’

  ‘He called me. He called Tristan as well.’

  ‘I know. But that’s not all; there’s more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Before we get stuck into lunch and drown our sorrows, you should know this …’