Quick on the Draw

by Susan Moody

  Cesare was helping Sandro to his feet. ‘Oh,’ he said, his voice breaking with emotion. ‘I heard the gun and thought that they had killed you.’ He embraced his nephew, who still wasn’t quite with it.

  I frowned. ‘Why was the gun fired in the first place? Is there someone else here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sandro said. He was pale, his lips bloodless. ‘I don’t care, either.’ He put his arms around Cesare and rested his head against his uncle’s broad chest. He began to shake. ‘I thought I was going to die,’ he whispered.

  Joey was peering into the other two rooms. He came out of the second one and jerked his head at me, indicating that he wanted to show me something. The something was another body, lying behind the door and bleeding profusely. ‘We should call a doctor,’ he said.

  ‘Should we?’ I felt little sympathy for any of the gang. However, one of Cesare’s men had followed us and was already on his phone, calling up medical reinforcements.

  I raised my eyebrows at Joey. ‘We should go,’ I said. ‘We can catch up with Sandro tomorr—’

  ‘Don’t go.’ It was Sandro, sounding much stronger. He held out a hand. ‘Please don’t go, Alex. Not yet.’

  ‘Absolutely. I insist that you come back to the palazzo,’ Cesare said. ‘We owe you so much – both you and Joey. My wife will …’ He broke off. Shook his head as though words were insufficient. Put a hand on Joey’s shoulder. ‘Come. Andiamo.’

  SIXTEEN

  I’d last met the Marchese’s wife, Marchesa Allegra de Farnese de Peron, at Sandro’s party back in London. Tonight, she looked even more like a corn-fed chicken carcase than she had then: more bony, more yellow, more unwilling to smile. She was also wearing a lot less bling than the last time I saw her. I knew the Marchese wasn’t exactly a pillar of fidelity and, given my experience with the unfaithful Jack the Love Rat, I was hardly one to condone his behaviour.

  She greeted us with cool gratitude, her husky voice a testament to a million cigarettes smoked over the years. Offered us brandy in huge balloon glasses. Spoke of her happiness at having her beloved Sandro back in the bosom of the family. It wasn’t a bosom I’d have wanted to be clasped to, but clasp him she did, while Sandro submitted to her embraces with his usual good grace.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Signorina Alessandra, have you completed your work assignment in Venice or have you more to do?’ Her manner wasn’t chilly. Glacial would have described it better. Was it the embarrassment and scandal of her noble family being dragged through the criminal mud like this? She must have been relieved that the papers hadn’t got hold of it. So far.

  ‘I’ll be here for a couple more days.’ There was Renzo to catch up with, and his stanza segreta to see. Unless I put that on hold until the next time I was here. Meanwhile, there were a couple more galleries I’d made appointments to visit which I’d had to put on hold.

  ‘Then back to London, no?’

  ‘No, I live near … Canterbury,’ I said, trying to find a reference point for her.

  ‘Ah, yes. Such a magnificent cathedral. And when does your next book appear?’ She turned, displaying the tendons of her neck, to indicate a tall mahogany bookcase. ‘You will see that we have all your previous ones.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’ I gave her my best smile. ‘As for the new one, it’s in production, as they say.’

  ‘I look forward to seeing it.’ Graciously, she started to turn away as, belatedly, I remembered that Katy Pasqualin had been her niece. ‘Marchesa, excuse me.’ I laid a hand on her black silk arm. She looked down at it with astonished hauteur and I quickly removed it. ‘I just wanted to say how sorry I was to hear of your niece’s death.’

  For a moment, she looked as though she didn’t understand. Then she gave a small nod. ‘Yes. It was very sad. Very sad. Thank you.’ She moved off to talk to Joey.

  Temporarily alone, I gazed round at my splendid surroundings. This might only be an appartamento, but it didn’t look like any flat I’d ever lived in. It truly was more like a palazzo. The painted ceiling featured the usual rose-edged clouds cluttered with naked putti, some winged, some not, pointing with chubby fingers at the rays of brilliant light streaming from a central figure of a bearded elder in scarlet robes, seated in a golden mist, one hand raised in blessing or admonition. From his expression, it was hard to tell which. Was this God the Father? Or the ring-bestowing doge ancestor? Or someone else altogether?

  At the far end of the room, a huge and magnificent tapestry covered the wall, portraying a hunting scene. Stags leaped between stylized trees, huntsmen blew horns, a pack of hounds chased after the stags. There was other game, too. Cheetahs and leopards slunk around the edges, a tiger bared its teeth from the mouth of a cave, hares looked interested among harebells and poppies, a lynx stalked behind a bush of something prickly. Three life-size solid silver lions stood on the polished marble in front of the scene.

  Giant candelabra stood here and there along the side walls. Old Masters gleamed dully. A cabinet contained what looked like a priceless collection of coloured glass. Three immensely long refectory tables stretched the full length of the room, laden with bowls of fruit, elaborate flower arrangements, many examples of heavily chased ceremonial silver – bowls, caskets, goblets, candlesticks, wonderful pieces of porcelain, including what looked like an entire Flora Danica dinner service. The place seemed more like a museum than a family salon. I wondered how comfortable it was to live in, whether there was a cosier place where you could kick off your shoes, put your feet up on a coffee table and watch a lightweight movie.

  And glancing round, indeed there was one – a little anteroom off the main salon with ordinary furniture, a coffee table piled untidily with magazines, and a TV flickering in one corner.

  In the main salone, there were glasses, red and white wines, fruit, chocolates and sweet pastries. A couple of bottles of ’95 Bollinger sweated in a silver bucket. The Marchese seized one and expertly worked off the armour of the cork with his thumbs, removed the cork, filled some glasses and handed them round.

  ‘Please raise your glasses to our beloved Sandro, safely back in our midst,’ he said. His eyes glistened. He glanced at him with what seemed to be distaste. At his side, Allegra stood with bowed head, hands nervously twisting the silky material at her waist. In her plain black dress, she looked less like a member of one of the oldest families in Venice and more like someone’s victim. Her husband’s, I guessed. The man was plainly a domestic tyrant. Fierce, Sandro had called him. Despite the tears he’d shed earlier over his nephew, Cesare seemed to be reverting to type.

  ‘And also to Alessandra Quick and Giuseppe Preston,’ the Marchese continued, ‘for their invaluable help in recovering him.’ Visibly aged by the events of the past few days, he nonetheless managed to lift his champagne flute and look round at us. We all drank to the successful completion of the exercise.

  ‘All we need now is to catch the people behind the kidnap,’ I said.

  ‘We’re fairly sure who they are, aren’t we?’ said Joey.

  ‘Why don’t you arrest them, then?’ It was Allegra, raising her head at last. ‘If you know who they are and where they live?’

  ‘Proof,’ said Joey. ‘We have no proof.’

  ‘We have witnesses,’ I added, ‘but a clever defence lawyer would have no problem proving them unreliable – even if they haven’t already got on their tourist buses and been driven away from here to Florence or Naples or Assisi.’

  By now it was late and I was longing to get away, back to my original hotel in the Rialto. I’d managed a few words with Joey on our way here, but he didn’t know any more than I did whether the baker had been apprehended. ‘At least they didn’t get away with the cash,’ he’d said.

  ‘So what would they charge him with? I’ll bet he stayed well in the background so that Sandro couldn’t identify him.’

  ‘One of the sidekicks will break, I’m quite sure. Rubber hoses, water-boarding – whatever it takes.’

  ‘You are j
oking,’ I’d said.

  He’d shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  When we were finally able to leave, after further protestations of gratitude from Sandro and his aunt and uncle, we walked beside the Grand Canal in silence. It had been an exhausting and jittery few days, always edged with the underlying terror that Sandro wouldn’t make it. Now that he was safely back, I felt the anticipated sense of anti-climax, so much so that I felt I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. Joey seemed to realize this. He pulled my arm around his waist and put his round mine. At the hotel, he helped me up the stairs, found my key and got me into my room, where he proceeded to remove most of my clothes before pulling back the covers and pushing me gently on to the bed.

  It wasn’t a surprise to find him lying beside me shortly after that, wearing nothing but a pair of jockey shorts – silk, no less! – which he very quickly removed. What followed was brief, businesslike and extremely pleasurable. Just, in fact, what the doctor ordered, had a doctor been consulted. I don’t think either of us saw it as anything other than a one-off exchange of bodily fluids, a way to celebrate a job well done. Afterwards, I felt relaxed for the first time in what seemed like weeks. I’d have enjoyed it just a tad more if Sam Willoughby’s image hadn’t intruded quite so insistently.

  It was late when I awoke the following morning. I was alone. Joey had gone. Suddenly, I began weeping. Not for Joey’s absence, but for my own pathetic inadequacies. Lonely, unloved, divorced, rapidly turning into an ageing spinster, I snivelled away, overcome by the meagreness of my current existence. I should be building a life with someone, having babies, working for pleasure rather than in the hope of earning barely enough to live on through my puny and futile efforts, rather than snatching at sex with relative strangers.

  What was wrong with me? I very rarely indulged in self-pity. Reaction to the tension and stress of recent days, perhaps. After a while, I heaved myself out of bed, showered away my angst, dressed then went downstairs. There was no sign of Joey. The concierge handed me an envelope as I passed his desk, which I shoved into my bag. I had two hours to kill before my first appointment, so I went out and found a small cobbled square set among tall buildings, where I was able to order a coffee. I pulled out the envelope the hotel concierge had handed me and started to open it. From Joey, I imagined. Last-night-was-fun sort of thing. Or bye-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish. Instead, I fished out a thick wad of one-thousand euro notes, dozens of them, and a stiffly embossed card showing the Marchese’s coat of arms. Thank you so much, he had written. My wife and I are immensely grateful.

  I was pretty grateful myself. There was enough money in the envelope to keep me in chocolate and red wine for the next three years, let alone pay all my real living expenses, like utility bills, council taxes, food bills and the boring like. More importantly, remembering my woeful morning tears, here was the perfect opportunity to do something different, indulge myself in some of the dreams I’d had over the years. Travel across the Gobi Desert on a camel. Join a circus. Have a year out and live in Prague or Barcelona or Marrakesh, or even Venice. Learn to tap dance. Take up the cello. The world was, or could be, my oyster. Such a pity I don’t like oysters.

  I whipped through my remaining appointments. Then I rang Renzo and apologized profusely. Said I’d been called back to England on an urgent family matter. (‘Ah, your mamma,’ he said sympathetically, to which I agreed after remembering that Mary was supposed to be seriously ill with pneumonia.) I promised I would return to Venice very shortly and, when I did, he would be my first port of call. He protested routinely at my departure, but not overmuch.

  I was back in my flat the following day.

  I set up my computer and checked my emails. A long list of them had arrived while I was absent but none of them was from Sam Willoughby. There was, however, one from a woman I’d never heard of, exclaiming over a picture she’d received from him. Say what? Who the hell was she? How had she gotten hold of my email address? Looks like Sam’s found true love at last! she wrote. About time too. A lovely guy like that shouldn’t be on his own.

  Nor, I thought crossly, remembering my depression of yesterday and slamming down the lid of my PC, should a lovely woman like me. ‘Huh!’ I said into the bleak emptiness of my sitting room. ‘Some friend you are, Mr Willoughby.’ Thinking of him, I was surprised at how much I missed him, at the realization of how much I depended on his company, his reliability. I didn’t want to think about him staying permanently out there in New Zealand, shearing sheep alongside his brother and the blonde jillaroo.

  The following morning, I called Fliss Fairlight regarding Katy Pasqualin.

  ‘Nothing definite yet,’ she said, ‘but the Met’s turning its beady little eye back to the boyfriend.’

  ‘Yes, it almost had to be someone she knew well. Someone she felt comfortable enough with to remove her clothes and take a bath.’

  ‘Or this other person dropped by, was invited in for a cuppa, and then departed – or so Katy thought.’

  ‘Hm, yes, that’s a possibility.’ I could easily envisage the scenario: a sweaty journey back from work on a crowded tube or bus, then someone she knows well knocks at the door and is invited in, Katy giving a cuppa or whatever and then insisting she herself has to have a relaxing soak before the evening gets underway. Or perhaps using the bath as an excuse not to have to talk.

  ‘I’d like to know a lot more about these so-called sugar daddies,’ I said.

  ‘So would we.’

  ‘I mean, is it a straightforward business arrangement? I pay for your serviced London apartment, gym membership, holidays, designer clothes and so on, in return for access to your gorgeous body whenever I want it?’

  ‘More or less exactly that. And don’t forget the boob jobs.’

  ‘What? When I met her, she didn’t look like someone who’d had a boob job, more like someone who’d never had boobs to have a job done. Nor was she toting a designer handbag. Didn’t the word “blackmail” rear its ugly head at some point?’

  ‘It did. Thing is, according to Joy, they’re having a hard time identifying them. Nobody seems to have any idea who they might have been.’

  ‘Who mentioned them in the first place?’

  ‘One of her friends … Suzy Hartley Heywood, I think.’

  Sandro’s girlfriend. It all seemed a bit incestuous to me. Luckily, now that Sandro was safely back on home turf, I wasn’t involved in any of it.

  Later, I walked into town to restock my fridge. About to pass the bookshop, on impulse, I went in. Alison, Sam’s assistant and temporary manager, was dealing with a customer, so I waved at her and went to scrutinize the second-hand shelves, looking for something undemanding to read while I spent the next couple of days putting myself together after all the recent stresses.

  ‘Great news, isn’t it?’ she carolled across the shop when the customer had departed.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘About Sam, I mean.’

  To say my heart plummeted in my chest would be to employ a cliché which described exactly how I felt. ‘Yes,’ I said. Fuck. He was going to emigrate to New Zealand.

  ‘About time he settled down, don’t you think? He’s such a lovely guy.’ Double fuck. He was going to marry the blonde jillaroo.

  ‘He is indeed,’ I agreed. A lot lovelier than I’d previously appreciated. I picked out a book at random and took it over to the sales counter.

  Alison raised her eyebrows as she rang it up. ‘I hope you enjoy this,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I picked it up. How to Improve Your Sex Life: 20 Easy Tips Towards a Better Work/Life Balance. ‘Sorry … must’ve pulled the wrong book out by mistake,’ I mumbled, pushing it aside. I didn’t like the way she was smirking.

  Out in the High Street, I walked towards the Fox and Hounds, hoping to find the Major ensconced in the bar. And there he was. ‘Hello, m’dear,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to see you. What can I get you?’

  ‘A G and T, please,’ I said. ‘With a doubl
e gin, if you don’t mind.’ I normally wouldn’t dream of drinking alcohol at this time of the day, but I needed it this morning.

  ‘Something wrong, Alex? You look rather down in the mouth.’

  Damn Sam. ‘I am a bit, I guess. But I’ll bounce back. And how about you?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. Apart from some blasted fellow hanging round the gate. Told him to clear off but of course the lane is public property, so if he wants to loiter I can’t really stop him. In the old days, I’d have loaded a shotgun shell with rock salt and discharged it at him. That would have sent him packing PDQ, I can tell you. Painful, but non-lethal, d’you see?’

  ‘Do you think he’s casing the joint, hoping to break in when you’re not there?’

  ‘He’s welcome. I’ve got nothing of any value, really. Except …’ He began rummaging in a tatty old army-issue canvas haversack at his feet and came up with a square envelope. ‘Here. I’d be so grateful if you’d take these under your wing, while I decide on my next course of action.’

  ‘These?’

  ‘Those dratted Italian drawings. I’d like to get them off my hands asap.’

  ‘But … didn’t Ms Forbes say they really belonged to her, since she was the one who bought them when she and Mrs Roscoe were in Venice together?’

  He assumed an expression which combined sorrow, derision and resentment. He snorted harshly, setting his moustache all of a quiver. ‘She may well have done, m’dear. But I’m a strong believer in the old army maxim: never take anyone at their word. Always verify their credentials. And even then, take nothing for granted. So I checked the woman out. Went on that spiderweb thingy which my son gave me. Called the high school. They said she’d died a while ago. I doubt if the woman even knew poor Nell, let alone ever went on holiday with her.’

  ‘Wow! Impressive detective work.’ I was delighted that he’d found this out for himself, so that I didn’t have to break it to him.

  ‘Yes.’ He looked modest.