The Wolves of Venice

by Alex Connor

  Tintoretto shook his head.

  “No, it makes no sense. You said that Rosella had been strangled and abandoned. A public death, a messy death.” He paused, controlling his feelings. “... If the Gianettis had wanted to kill her, they would have organised it to look like an accident. Or that she had died from natural causes. She would have been found in bed, not in a public canal. They would not have risked bringing suspicion on themselves by acting recklessly.”

  “Who knows what anyone is capable of?”

  “Not murder. Not Marco,” Tintoretto replied firmly, “I do not believe it.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “You have told that already. Have I accused you?”

  “Not in words.”

  “Not in a look either!” Tintoretto retorted heatedly. “We must be calm and consider all the facts.”

  “Rosella has been murdered and you say that the Gianettis cannot be responsible... But why would anyone else want her death?”

  Tintoretto thought back to something Ira had said earlier. “Rosella is in the morgue now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Several months ago I went to the morgue do an anatomy study.” The artist chose his words with care. “There was the body of a girl that I recognised. She was called Gabriella Russo and she had posed for me a few times —”

  Ira flinched. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rosella posed for you too! I knew I should never have allowed it —”

  “Listen to me, Ira! Please, listen. The girl died in horrible circumstances, her body mutilated.” He stared at Ira. “Do you know the Dutchman, Barent der Witt?”

  “I know of him. Why?”

  “His daughter was murdered in The Hague, and there was another woman killed in France. The Dutchman came to Venice in the hope of finding the killer, but he was too late to help Gabriella. Now Rosella has been killed.” Tintoretto leaned towards Ira, hurrying on. “Four murders. Two killings in this city within the last few months. And no one held to account. No one even suspected... So I am wondering if the victims were all murdered by the same man.”

  Ira frowned. “Why was Gabriella Russo killed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But if no one is suspected, how can we prove anything? How can we even prove there is a connection? You are grasping at straws.” Ira replied, his head in his hands. “Rosella did not know Gabriella Russo, or the women in The Hague and France. Rosella is dead and it’s her we should be thinking about.”

  “But if the same man killed all four women —”

  “And how will you prove it?” Ira replied desperately. “I hit my sister, remember?”

  “That was an accident! You were fighting with Marco and Rosella got in the way —”

  “What if I meant to hurt her?...”

  “Did you?”

  “...Maybe think I did.” Ira admitted.

  The painter took in a breath. “Do not repeat what you have just said to anyone. The Doge and the Venetian authorities are draconian on murder. The prisons are always full, but most demeanours are due to whoring and theft. There are few murders in the Republic and the Doge wishes that it remains that way. All the more reason, Ira, that you must take great care. Be judicious, calm, answer any of their questions with equanimity... Where were you when Rosella was killed?”

  “You think I did it?”

  “No! I am merely asking what they will ask you... Where were you?”

  “They said that my sister was found about an hour after her death. At that time I would have been between patient visits. There was a long walk between the two locations —”

  Tintoretto nodded. “And you were alone?”

  “Yes, I was alone.”

  “No one saw you?”

  “I walked past many people, nowhere is empty in Venice, but I doubt they would remember me, or I them.” His voice was speeding up. “It was dark, it was cold, people were intent on their own business. No, no one can vouch for me! I spoke to no one, I bought nothing, I was just walking...”

  Tintoretto leaned towards him. “Who told you that Rosella had been killed?”

  “The gatekeeper at the ghetto.”

  “And when did the authorities come to see you?”

  “They asked me to go to their offices this morning and I have been there all day. I came here as soon as they let me leave.” Ira stared at the artist. “What if they don’t believe me? What if they really think I killed Rosella? They knew about our arguments, the bad feelings. They will —”

  “They will do nothing - unless you give them reason to suspect you.” Tintoretto replied, rising to his feet. “I have a friend, a patron who is connected to the Council of Forty.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Council of Forty deals with crime in Venice. It is made up of counsellors from the nobility – not lawyers – but they act as both jury and judge. They decide and give a ruling on violent crimes like murder.” He took off his work apron and tossed it to one side. “Stay here, Ira, I will go and see him.”

  “But surely if he is a member of the Council he will not see you about this —”

  “He is not a member. He is my patron and a friend.” Tintoretto put a hand on Ira’s shoulder. “Stay here, speak to no one, and wait for my return. Do you hear me, Ira? Say nothing.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Below he could hear the guards at the water entrance, someone calling out to a passing woman on the bridge. She said something in reply which Marco could not hear and then she laughed. The sound snaked up from the water and up the stone walls, pushing its tongue into the crumbling brickwork and then falling deep amongst the wooden poles on which the city rested.

  Silence followed. Behind him, Marco could hear the lowered voice of the lawyer, Ferriti, the squirrel like man bending down to speak to his grandmother. One hand rested on the back of her chair, the other on his leg, a ring on the first finger of his right hand. Perhaps a crest ring, Marco wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was the Gianetti crest - but then a lawyer would not be allowed to wear that, only members of the family could.

  He would be able to wear it. He would be able to use it to impress its design into the wax when he signed and sealed documents. The Gianetti crest, known all over Italy... Looking up, Marco’s gaze rested on the stained glass panel of a triumphant bull, the animal treading an armed man underfoot. The Gianetti family, crushing his enemies as easily as a man could crush mosquitoes from the wetlands outside Venice.

  As a child he had been taken there once, by Cara. When he was ten and she was twenty. No one ever wished to know where Marco went – as long as he was accompanied, no one worried. And so Cara, plump and full of mischief, took her young charge to the wetlands where the fisherman worked, and where the sand flats extended towards the far horizon into the clouds. They had eaten a meal of bread and salted fish, their company merely a trio of elegant heron and a flock of indignant geese. A sky that had no intention of darkening and a sun that was holding tight to the day, saw them wander amongst the eerie quiet sand flats, the light casting chequered shadows from the fishing nets.

  It had been long before Marco had known what the future would bring him, or that his promised legacy wavered on a lie... He glanced over to his grandmother, the pernicky Ferriti still leaning over her like a weather vane and wondered what he was predicting. And if he had ever suspected that the arrangements he was making for Marco’s inheritance would be declared null and voice in a court of law.

  If Aretino exposed the truth.

  If he took the letter from Marco’s real father and that of his mother, and waved the catastrophic duo at the Venetian authorities. And all that prevented – and prolonged - the revelation was Aretino’s paid silence... Marco knew he was trapped, but had accepted his capture in return for the power. After all, he reasoned, the legacy was plentiful, enough to assuage Aretino’s greed... Marco’s gaze moved upward to the stained glass window again, fixing on the Gianetti crest. His grandmother did
not realise it, but he had no intention of marrying Rosella Tabat. He would not tell her his decision until his legacy was confirmed, but he would never marry the mother of his child. He had some real affection for Rosella, as he had once had affection for Ira, but their relationship had curdled and belonged in his past.

  “Marco?”

  He turned to his grandmother. “Yes?”

  “You have some final papers to sign now and then the documents will be official, as will your legacy, making you Master of the Gianetti household.” She gestured to Ferriti, watching as the lawyer set the papers on the table for Marco to sign them. Content, she then waved the lawyer aside, waiting for Ferriti to leave the room before speaking to her grandson again. “Remember what I asked of you – include me in your dealings and I will assist you to the best of my ability. As I did for your father.”

  And he wanted to say how? How did you assist my drunken, treacherous father, a stranger you never knew? But he didn’t blame her, because he realised Jacopo Gianetti had deceived his grandmother just as he had deceived him. And now he was about to repeat the past in denying the Contessa the truth.

  “How does it feel, Marco, to be master?”

  “It feels...” he paused, shuffling words. “…comfortable.”

  Idly he moved about the room, his hand resting on a celestial globe, then touching a marble portrait head of a satyr. The bronze statue in Jacopo’s study would be removed, Marco decided, relegated to the storerooms below, and a marble nude put in its place. Smiling to himself, he moved over to the window, looking down into the Lagoon. The servants were lighting the first early lamps as the afternoon closed in, the water throwing back the illumination as it flickered against the stone walls.

  His pleasure came as a surprise to him, an intensity beyond eroticism. No woman had ever excited such emotion as the realisation that all Venice would admire him. The handsome, charming Gianetti heir. No longer ignored, or touted as Aretino’s protégé. No, he would be a man of influence in his own right, at the head of a prestigious family and fortune. He would provide for his child with Rosella, but in time he would marry and have another son, maybe several sons, consolidating his empire for their eventual inheritance.

  And then he remembered Aretino. The fat devil who would always be just behind him. Holding an empty purse towards him, smiling like a wolf with Adamo Baptista in his wake... Marco winced, unsettled. He imagined for an instant that Aretino had died and the secret with him. But he knew that the writer would have made certain he could keep working the puppet strings, even from hell. Adamo Baptista was still young, if not aware of Marco’s origins now, he would be in time. Or would he? Marco wondered. After all, how would it profit the dead Aretino if Baptista continued the blackmail? Aretino had no family, no dependents, it would not be in his nature to give Baptista such an opportunity. Perhaps, Marco thought with increasing hope, when the writer died, he would be free.

  With such a feeling of expectancy, Marco left the room, the Contessa having fallen into a doze in her chair. His steps were quick down the corridor, his mood exhilarated, when Ferriti suddenly approached him.

  “You have a visitor, Signor Gianetti.”

  “I am not expecting anyone.”

  “The gentleman says it is of great importance that he speaks with you.”

  “Tell him I will see him tomorrow. Ask for his name —”

  “I have his name, signor. It is Aretino, Pietro Aretino.”

  ‘Let him back in – and you destroy us all.’

  His grandmother’s words came back to Marco as he shook his head. “No, Signor Ferriti, I cannot see him. Tell him I am not at home.”

  “But you are,” a voice boomed down the corridor, “you are standing here in front of me, very much at home.” Aretino said, walking, flat footed, towards him. “You must not bar me, friend, today of all days.”

  Marco stared at him. How had the writer known he had just signed the documents which secured the Gianetti inheritance? Barely before the ink was dry on the paper he had appeared, magicked himself into a house which should have denied him admittance. And now he was standing, wrapped in a voluminous red cape, his feet swollen in their embroidered shoes, and behind him stood Adamo Baptista.

  “Should I call the guards, signor?” Ferriti asked.

  “No,” Marco replied shortly, “I will attend to this.”

  “Would you like me to remain?”

  “You don’t need a nanny,” Aretino said, “I won’t hurt you. We are merely talking.” He looked at the lawyer. “You may leave us.”

  Ferriti glanced over to Marco, then nodded as he was dismissed.

  His light mood vanished, Marco retraced his steps down the passageway past the room where his grandmother was sleeping, moving into a reception room at the front of the palazzo. The chamber was decorated in a soft, limpid green, the cornice and ceiling gilded, curtains drawn back and looped with corded silk. In the fireplace a blaze had been lit, tempering the chill of the October evening. In silence, Marco moved over to an armchair, gesturing for Aretino to take the one opposite him across the fireplace, six feet between them.

  And leaning against the wall by the door, Baptista stood with his arms folded, his face expressionless.

  “Such a tragedy.”

  Marco stared at him, the words meaning nothing. “I don’t know to what you refer.”

  “The poor girl. Who would have expected such a dreadful event?”

  “Which poor girl?”

  Aretino glanced over to Baptista then leaned forward in his seat. His voice was hushed, thick with sympathy.

  “Rosella Tabat. She has been found murdered.”

  “Rosella murdered?” Marco shook his head. “No, that can’t be true.”

  “But it is,” Aretino insisted, “her body was discovered yesterday evening. I had thought you would have heard, that was why I came to offer my condolences.”

  “Rosella?” Marco repeated dully. “She is having my child —”

  “No, my friend, she is dead.”

  “But why would she be dead?” Marco looked from Aretino to Baptista, his confusion obvious. “She was well yesterday. I sent word to the ghetto and was told Rosella was recovered —”

  “From her brother’s attack?”

  “Ira did not attack her!” Marco replied hotly. “It was a mistake, he was aiming for me and hit Rosella instead.”

  “Of course you would say that —”

  “I would say that because it is the truth!” Marco snapped, staring at the massive figure facing him, the red cape flashing crimson as the firelight illuminated it. “Rosella came between us, that was all. It was a mistake.”

  “She had come between you and Ira for some while, hadn’t she?” Aretino said, “Her pregnancy had caused her brother much humiliation. I heard he was not speaking to her and that the poor girl was living with neighbours.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t like that.” Marco corrected him. “Rosella just wanted to be with the Fasculos. She found a mother figure in Gilda —”

  “The usurer?” Aretino raised his eyebrows. “The Tabats keep bad company. You know the Fasculo woman is a money lender, a thief, a fugitive from her native Florence? Why would Rosella consort with such people?”

  “They were friends. Gilda is not a thief, she helps the poorest in the ghetto, people who cannot obtain a loan from elsewhere. The Venetian law —”

  “You are questioning the law of the Republic?” Aretino asked, exchanging a glance with Baptista. “You are an Italian, now the Master of a great family, you would do well to choose your friends with more care.” He sighed expansively. “People will try to take advantage of you now, Marco, you must beware.”

  The atmosphere in the chamber had shifted; Aretino falling silent, Baptista still standing by the door as Marco hesitated. His breath seemed to strain from his lungs, his ribs barely moving as he felt the full force of his visitor’s ominous presence. Should he believe him? He wondered. Was Rosella truly dead, or was it anoth
er trick? Another lie? ... A threat hung in the air between them; it was heavy, choked with malice, Marco struggling to clear his thoughts.

  “Why would anyone kill Rosella?”

  “Why do you think, Marco?”

  And he wanted to say – Was it you? No, it would not be you, it would be the man standing by the door. The man saying nothing, his expression unreadable. Adamo Baptista… Had he killed Rosella?... Marco struggled to inhale, touching his breast, his fingers bruising the beaded velvet.

  “I don’t understand. Who killed Rosella?”

  “You know who killed her,” Aretino said, with a frisson of impatience. “You are the head of the Gianetti household, you must take charge and speak up. You cannot demand respect unless you earn it.”

  “I don’t believe she’s dead or murdered!” Marco said defiantly. “How did she die?”

  “She was strangled.”

  He could feel the blood fizz in his ears, the fire’s flames making darts up the chimney, the padded doublet crushing his chest. Urgently his hands gripped the velvet and tore the waistcoat apart as he gasped for air.

  And Aretino watched him, in silence, waiting until Marco had steadied himself. “I am heartbroken to be the bearer of such sorrowful news. Poor Rosella, it was a poor death” the writer continued, “but she will have justice.”

  “Yes.” Marco nodded, avoiding Baptista’s gaze, wondering what to say.

  Wondering which was the murderer in the room, or if he was floundering in some great pool where the water was black underneath him and the ghouls were reaching up to take hold of his feet. For some inexplicable reason, he thought of the flatlands, the acres of water and solitude.

  “It was not me.”

  “I know that. You are not capable of such horror. But” Aretino said, his voice compassionate, “we must be very careful, or you will be blamed.”

  Marco’s head jerked up. “How can I be blamed? I did nothing.”