A gale of laughter came from the kitchen.
‘Have you really never been with a girl?’ Nani asked poor Maso, who was now even more embarrassed than ever.
‘The problem is, I’m always on my own,’ Maso said lamely. ‘After work the other weavers all go off and I just go home. I can’t exactly stop a girl in the street, can I?’
‘After lunch,’ promised Nani, ‘I’ll take you to the coffee shop behind La Salute. It’s a respectable place, so there are no drunks or time-wasters there, but they’re not snobby either. I’m not saying that you’ll find any bourgeois daughters – they’d never be allowed to step outside the front door – but it’s where the best maidservants in Venice go, and young widows, as well as some of the young market sellers. People of a certain standing. I always manage to meet someone to chat to, and on a good day, even a decent bed I can slip into.’
‘Nani,’ said Gertrude in scandalised tones, because she’d already set her sights on Maso. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? It’s bad enough that you behave so indecently and brag about it, but that you want to drag a decent man like Maso along with you, that’s really too much!’
‘But it’s not indecent,’ laughed Nani. ‘Love is the most beautiful thing in the world.’
‘Here we are,’ said Chiara pensively, holding Daniele’s left hand, which he had offered somewhat timidly. ‘You’re a very balanced person, loyal to the end and highly intelligent, capable of analysing situations in depth. I’d say you’re the ideal person to be a lawyer, and to act as a consultant to an avogadore.’ She looked at Marco with a smile.
Daniele watched her, his curiosity mixed with trepidation.
‘But . . .’
‘Is there a “but”?’ asked Daniele seriously, widening his blue eyes.
‘Yes, look at these signs: your life line is long and free from illness. You have before you a career which will take you to high posts and will be very successful, but your heart line is troubled.’
‘I disagree,’ interrupted Marco. ‘I know how many women he sees!’
‘No, no,’ Chiara objected. ‘There’s only one woman here.’ Daniele went pale. ‘Look, you see all the others – these little lines – but they don’t count. This deep line, which is broken here, indicates a single, great love, a love that would seem to be . . . secret.’
‘It’s not possible!’ Daniele’s words came rushing out in the anguish of his embarrassment.
‘Secret?’ said Marco. ‘Daniele has no secrets from me.’ He looked at his friend’s face, now a torment of confusion, and stopped talking.
Chiara immediately realised what was happening. ‘Forgive me, Daniele, I’ve been indiscreet, as usual. I am led on by what I see in someone’s hand and I don’t realise that this might be uncomfortable—’
‘Go on . . .’ interrupted Daniele. He seemed lost and his voice was barely audible.
‘If you want me to.’ Chiara started again, while Marco looked on, dumbfounded. ‘The woman you have always loved, and whom you will love for ever’ – Chiara sighed as she spoke these words – ‘she is not yours. You’ve always known, and this is why you have hidden the depth of your feeling from everyone.’
‘And this is what’s written on my palm?’ asked Daniele in astonishment.
‘On your palm and in your mind, which I can also read, thanks to your hand.’
‘You frighten me,’ exclaimed Zen. ‘Who are you? A magician?’
Marco interrupted. ‘Chiara isn’t a magician, she’s only a clairvoyant. All the women in her family have been seers. But she keeps it secret because it could lead to trouble. In fact, it was she who pointed me in the right direction in these investigations.’ Marco told his friend about Chiara’s visions and her powers as a healer.
‘Good heavens!’ Daniele exclaimed, while Chiara watched his reactions. ‘Now I see why she’s bewitched you. Oh, sorry, I see that’s not a very appropriate word choice. But I’ve never told anyone about my secret love, not even Marco.’ He looked down but went on talking, as if to himself. ‘I know well that it’s hopeless, but I can’t let her go. That’s why I pretend not to care when it comes to matters of the heart. She’s an exquisite creature, but she was forced into an arranged marriage at a very young age. I know that she has feelings for me, too, but it’s best for us both that we stay apart. It wouldn’t do either of us good, and I would certainly never want a clandestine relationship.’ He sighed, then smiled and said, ‘Well, that’s a weight off my chest. I’ve never spoken about it before, Marco, even to you, because I didn’t want anyone’s pity. Even now, I won’t tell you her name, unless Chiara can read that, too, in my mind.’
‘No,’ Chiara reassured him. ‘Names are beyond my powers. But I’ve not quite finished. Show me your palm again and be silent for a moment. Look at this point, Daniele,’ she continued, ‘here the line joins up again. It means that one day, indeed quite soon, there will be no need to maintain this secret. This isn’t a hopeless love. There is a chance that you might be very happy, but you mustn’t intervene, you must let events take their course. All will be well.’
Daniele gave a faint smile. ‘It would be wonderful, but I don’t dare hope. Her husband isn’t an old man and he’s still in excellent health.’
‘That’s strange; there is no sign of a marriage here. What I mean is this woman doesn’t seem to be married . . . Are you sure? Is she not still engaged?’
‘Yes, I’m sure . . . more’s the pity. He’s a well-known figure in Venice. She doesn’t have children, but she certainly has a husband. Well,’ he said in a resigned tone, ‘I’ve now bared my soul to you. I trust you will respect my secret.’
‘For us, it will be a sacred pact,’ said Marco.
The three of them raised their glasses once again, this time with greater solemnity. At that instant, Giuseppe walked in carrying the coffee pot.
It was already getting dark, and in the servants’ dining room Rosetta was stoking up the fire and lighting the lamps, while Marta sat on the sofa with a rug over her knees, enjoying a pastry.
‘Of course, it would be bliss,’ she suddenly said, as if following a train of thought, ‘to have children around the house again. The older one gets, the more one longs for their laughter, their delight.’
Rosetta came to sit beside her. ‘I would love to have children to care for again. The avogadore was such a delightful little boy. He would play jokes on me sometimes and then come and say sorry in such a serious little voice and give me a big hug.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘His mother, Signora Elena, is still a most beautiful woman, even today, but she wasn’t the sort who left her children to the servants, and she was always personally involved in their education. Yet, in that little boy’s heart there was room for me too.’
‘Now that you’ve mentioned the Pisani family . . .’ Marta thought that the time had come when she could dare to ask the question. ‘If our two wards were to get engaged, Signora Rosetta, do you think the avogadore’s parents would object to the fact that my Chiara is a commoner?’
Rosetta smiled at her new-found friend. ‘Marta, you don’t know the Pisani family . . . they are unique. They don’t need anyone else’s blue blood because they are aristocrats through and through, and that means they can choose to marry where they like.’
‘Would they not be opposed to a marriage between . . .?’
‘Signora Elena can’t wait to see her son happily married again, after all that has happened. She’d welcome Signorina Chiara as a daughter.’
CHAPTER 25
It was mid-afternoon and in the study the lamps were already lit and the room was filled with the scent of the logs burning in the fireplace. On the marble shelf, a candelabra lit the portrait of Virginia, and its wavering flames appeared to animate the young woman’s face.
Before sitting down around the desk with Marco and Daniele, Chiara stopped to look at the portrait with a slight smile. ‘She was very beautiful,’ she murmured, almost to herself.
Plato then
strolled in, filled with delicious tidbits from lunch, and lazily stretched out on an armchair, from which he looked up at Chiara with some suspicion. The young woman walked over to stroke him, but she was met with an irritated yowl. He’s jealous, she thought. He’ll get over it. The cat furiously licked his fur where he had been stroked.
Marco was the first to talk. He gave an account of the previous day’s meetings and told the others about a message he’d received from Alvise Cappello that morning. The Ottoman merchant, Ibrahim Derali, had been telling the truth: he had left Venice in October on the ship called Fulminante and had only returned a few days ago. Then Marco shared Angela Sporti’s revelations. ‘The last few hours have been so tumultuous that I’ve not had a moment to reflect on it,’ he added. ‘Unfortunately, we’ve not got much time, though, because the city’s now awash with rumours about a mysterious killer who picks his victims at random and then throttles them. We know that the choice is far from random and there is someone who hated those three men, but until we can lay our hands on Labia and hear his confession we’ll be unable to silence the rumours.’
‘To be more precise,’ interrupted Daniele, ‘we mustn’t forget that we are dealing with two distinct criminal acts, even if they may be linked by cause and effect. A year and a half ago there was the murder of poor Marianna Biondini, and we know the names of her killers. And then, during the past ten days or so, someone has been eliminating precisely these men. Three of them are already dead, which only leaves Labia.’
‘It certainly helps to explain my visions, which seemed so out of place,’ said Chiara. ‘The blonde girl, the scarlet cloak, the church of San Zaccaria, where I saw the scene happening, and the gondolier, who might have been Biagio: it all now makes sense, although who knows where he hid the corpse? The only thing that hasn’t yet been explained is the ship arriving from the East . . . perhaps it was the ship that brought back the “avenger”, if I can call him that.’
‘Careful, Chiara,’ warned Marco. ‘These were all murders. No one can take the law into their own hands.’
Daniele was absorbed in his own thoughts. ‘Agreed, the Turk has an alibi. Although perhaps he isn’t as clean as he’d like us to think: I think he may have encouraged the victims to embezzle the confidential material, and he might have been interested in the mud dredger, but he certainly never actually laid his hands on any of the documents, and he never killed anyone. But are we sure,’ Daniele asked, ‘that the killer is one and the same as the person avenging Marianna Biondini’s death? And if so, who could it be?’
‘Let’s take another look at the facts,’ Marco invited them. ‘What exactly do we know about this shadow who kills in the darkness? First, he’s a tall, well-built man. He was seen by the maid at Biagio’s tavern, and I saw him when he escaped from the locanda on the Giudecca. Oh, and another thing: he’s slightly lame, although I’m not sure if that’s the result of a temporary injury or a permanent disability. What’s more, he must still have a visible wound on his body somewhere, because the dagger which was found close to Marino Barbaro’s body ten days ago had blood on it, and the killer’s scar, even if slight, can’t have healed properly yet.’
‘Second,’ Daniele went on, ‘he’s either a Venetian or he’s been in Venice for at least ten days, and I would suggest much longer, because he’s been able to study his victims’ habits, their daily movements, the routes they took. And he also has money – remember the coins he showed to Signora Domenici?’
‘Third,’ added Chiara, ‘he uses a special rope from the Orient, or perhaps from Portugal. It’s like his signature. So, he’s someone who has contacts abroad.’
‘He’s not a loner,’ clarified Marco, ‘because he’s accustomed to talking to people; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to make enquiries about his victims. And there’s something else too: if he’s someone who’s taking revenge on behalf of that poor girl, he must be someone who was close to her, and we’re all thinking of the same person.’
‘Giorgione, her fiancé,’ concluded Daniele.
‘Exactly,’ Marco continued. ‘Giorgione knew who was to blame, and he’s had enough time to prepare his attacks because he’s been back in Venice for at least five months. He came from the East, so he’d have been able to procure that special kind of rope and, above all, he has a valid motive. Perhaps he brought some savings back from Constantinople, and we certainly know that he fits the build. But we know nothing about his character, or where he’s hiding. Tomorrow, I’ll send Nani to the Ghetto Nuovo to ask some discreet questions.’
‘And will you arrest him?’ asked Daniele.
Marco thought about this for a while. ‘I don’t know. If he’s innocent, I don’t want to torment him for no good reason.’
‘But if he’s innocent,’ countered Chiara, ‘then who’s to blame?’
They were interrupted by Giuseppe, who came in with a tray of glasses and a carafe of Cypriot wine. The conversation resumed as soon as he had left.
Daniele thought aloud while taking notes. ‘If the deaths of these three young men are linked to that of the Biondini girl, we need to look around the Castello neighbourhood, among the girl’s acquaintances. But no other names have come to light yet, except for Giorgione, that is. Marianna’s father has only been in Venice for three days, and before his return he had been told that his daughter died of an illness and not that she had disappeared. I can’t think of any other suspects. But the four of them were certainly not saints, and they could well have offended others, or have perpetrated some other crime . . . Don’t let’s forget that, before Marianna, Corner raped the maidservant, Lucietta.’
‘Even so,’ Marco interrupted, pouring wine into the glasses. ‘I asked Baldo Vannucci, who works for the inquisitors, and he didn’t know of any serious crimes that the four men might have committed. But then he doesn’t know anything about Marianna Biondini’s death, or about Lucietta, as the group has managed to keep their crimes secret.’
‘And Lucrezia Scalfi knew of nothing else apart from the possible death of an unnamed girl. Even though the four of them talked quite openly at her house and she, in her own words, certainly didn’t think twice about secretly spying on them.’
Chiara was thinking as she sipped the wine. ‘Let’s try to think about it this way: the first motive we need to consider is revenge, but what if we were wrong and the motive was quite different? Who would stand to benefit from the death of these three men?’
Marco shot her a smile. ‘Well done, Chiara,’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve forgotten the Corner family. Biagio and Barbaro were impoverished wretches, so they can’t have been killed for money. But for Piero Corner, things are different. His death makes his brother, Dario, an extremely wealthy man.’
‘And Dario’s a tall, well-built man,’ interrupted Daniele. ‘Apparently he’s very strong too.’
‘I’ve also noticed that since around the time of his brother’s death he’s been wearing a bandage on his knee and limping, like the shadow who jumped from the window after killing Biagio. But if it was him, it won’t be easy to prove,’ noted Marco. ‘We need to know exactly where he’s been. Daniele, do you think you could question some of the servants, informally? That old man, Matteo, for example, who bears a grudge against his masters.’
Chiara had been listening in silence up to this point, but she now spoke. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve got the feeling that we’re not yet on the right trail. I don’t think Dario Corner comes into this at all.’
‘Don’t give in to the temptation of trying to have another vision,’ warned Marco. And when Daniele turned to him with a questioning look, he added, ‘The last time she tried she was taken ill. Those who dare to enter the world of unknown forces pay a heavy price. We’ll continue with our investigations using the means we have. Chiara’s visions have been enlightening, but that’s enough.’
‘Well, what will we do now?’ asked Daniele, looking at the empty wine carafe.
‘Tomorrow you should summon Matteo by sending one
of your secretaries to the Corner palace, but do it as discreetly as possible. Then you’ll question him about relations between the brothers and about Dario’s movements. If you can find out what Dario was doing on the nights of the murders, so much the better. And remember to tell Matteo that he mustn’t tell a soul about any of this. If I can, I’ll come along, too, to listen to what he has to say. In the meantime, tomorrow morning I’ll send Nani to the Ghetto to look for Giorgione. That way we’ll know where to find him when we decide to question him. Nani knows how to do this sort of thing well, and he’ll find him without raising any suspicion. Then, on Tuesday, we’ll go under official escort to Villa Labia, in Mira, to arrest Paolo Labia. But we need him to confess everything before we bring him back to Venice, where his family might tamper with the evidence.’
‘And how are you going to square this with the inquisitors?’ Daniele reminded him.
‘That’s going to be difficult. I think I’ll have to visit them tomorrow morning and tell them how things stand. There’s no doubt that Labia is guilty, and they can’t object to his arrest.’
But on Monday 18 December, Marco’s meeting with the inquisitors had to be postponed because, on arriving at the ducal palace, he found a man waiting for him in his office. At first, he didn’t recognise him. He was fat and rather elderly, shabbily dressed, and in his hands he was twisting what seemed to be a pink rag.
‘Your Excellency,’ he began, with an awkward bow, ‘my name is Antonio Cotti, the landlord of the Locanda del Principe on the Giudecca.’
‘Oh, yes, the brothel,’ said Pisani.
‘It’s a respectable house,’ replied the man, offended.
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