The Lizard's Bite

by David Hewson

  The room was freezing. His parents had left him there with nothing but this curious voice, a more desolate echo of his own, for company.

  He looked at the clock, an old Black Forest cuckoo clock. Like something from a dream, the pendulum hung still, trapped artificially on the right side of the housing, which was a copy of a wooden mountain chalet, very like the one in which Leo now sat, stiffly upright on a hard, uncomfortable chair, aware that the room was reverberating from some sound that had penetrated it from elsewhere, a booming, rolling, chiming noise, the metallic ring of bells followed by the lunatic chirrup of the cuckoo’s bellows.

  They talked of avalanches here, in the winter. The mountains were perilous, solitary places. There were still bears, some said. And wild mountain men who would take a child just to enslave it, to put the stolen boy out into the fields to work the pastures, gone forever into a life of servitude, because someone had to work, always.

  His father told him that last story. One night when he’d been bad. Or at least forgetful, leaving the key inside the glass front door, where any thief might smash the window, snatch it, put a hand through and enter. A stranger, an intruder, a man who could rip the fragile fabric of family apart with his hands.

  Keys are what stand between decent people and chaos, Arturo Falcone told him, before he beat the boy Leo, with a relentless, chill deliberation that was, in some way, more painful because of the mental hurt it inflicted. Forget the keys and your little world dies, and you with it. Parents disappear. The lonely little boy from a cold, upper-middle-class family becomes a dirty mountain goatherd, abandoned to a life of misery and shame.

  Better off dead, his father said.

  Dead.

  He hated that word as a child, even before he fully understood what it meant. From an early age Leo Falcone found he was able to read the faces of others, see behind their expressions and guess at what they were truly thinking. It was a kind of magic, the very sort his father would have beaten out of him had he known it existed. But exist it did, and Leo knew what went through the minds of men and women, all adults, all better than him, when they said the dead-word.

  Terror.

  A long, slow, uncontrollable sense of dread, one that wouldn’t disappear until something—some other more immediate concern or, in his father’s case, a bottle of mountain brandy—displaced it from their heads.

  Dead.

  The boy Leo found he was able to say the word himself, at this freezing, deserted table, and, for the first time, experience none of the sense of cold, inner foreboding he expected.

  He drew the icy air into his lungs, two big, painful breaths, screwed up his face with an anger and force he would never have dared show had his father been present. Then he yelled . . .

  Dead, dead, dead . . . DEAD!

  There was a sound from high on the wall. The frozen pendulum on the clock moved, making a single swing from right to left before standing still again, defying gravity, defying everything that Leo had come to believe was solid, safe and natural in the world. Then it spoke again, that twin chorus, half metallic bell, half thunderous cuckoo roar, the very noise that had awoken him in this place.

  It wasn’t just a cuckoo clock. He should have remembered.

  The tiny wooden doors opened. From within, circling, circling, came two small round wooden figures. Husband and wife, he in mountain dress, leather leggings, a colourful shirt with braces, and a small green hat with a minute visible feather in it. She . . .

  Leo blinked. He remembered both figures now. The woman was plump and bustling and comical, in a white dress with blue spots, a kindly, rosy face, set forever in a wooden smile.

  This woman was gone. In her place was a large, naked figure, no higher than a finger, but made of flesh, real flesh, pink and white and flaccid in the way he’d noticed when his mother walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing, unaware he was there.

  Real flesh with weals and wounds and blood, real blood, blood that spat and spurted out of her under the vicious, constant blows of the little man who circled, arms thrashing, blade flashing.

  Little Leo blinked. The clock was changing, even as he watched.

  Now the little man wore a surgeon’s mask and a close-fitting surgical cap. His arm worked feverishly, slashing, slashing.

  Under the knife we go we go . . .

  . . . someone, the older Leo, sadly laughing, said at the back of his head.

  There was screaming too. Screaming from the little figures in the clock. Screaming from beyond this cold, cold room.

  Little Leo’s eyes fell on the door, the solid wooden barrier that led to his parents’ bedroom, a place he feared, a place where he didn’t belong. There was a huge carved wooden heart on the crossbeam, a sign of love, he imagined, though it seemed somehow out of place. And now this heart, old polished oak, was beating, slowly, weakly, pumping with a feeble resignation that was audible, moving in rhythm with his own, frightened pulse.

  Behind this palpitating wooden heart was their sanctuary, their private place in which a child was never allowed, no matter how much he needed them, how frightened he felt. There was no glass panel here, no window, nothing to allow anyone to glimpse what happened behind that solid, impassable wood. There was, too, no stupid, weak means to circumvent what was meant to be—safety, security, certainty—when you placed a key in the door and turned the lock.

  The key was there, on the table, taunting him. Old black metal, fancily worked so that it felt awkward in the hand, too large for the clumsy fingers of a child that grasped at the sharp angles of the handle and failed to find purchase. Even if he dared. Their bedroom was forbidden territory. Leo had known that all his short life. What happened there was for them alone.

  The bell and the roar of the cuckoo ripped through the air again. Leo watched the pendulum make a single crossing, from left to right, then stay stuck in time, spotted now with blood from the plump little female figure who thrashed and screamed and fought in her tiny, tightly defined circle of life on the porch of the carved clock.

  Nothing stops the flailing man, he thought. Not the pendulum. Not the ghostly voice in his head. Not God Himself. Because the flailing man is a part of God too, the part that always comes in the end.

  But he couldn’t say the words this time. The pendulum never moved. Some deep, primeval fear began to wake inside little Leo Falcone’s head, turn his bowels to water, make him want to sit on this old seat and pee himself out of terror.

  “The past is past,” the older voice said. “Trust me.”

  “So what do I do?” he asked, bitter, refusing to break down in tears because that always gave the adults some comfort, and would do so even when those watching, older eyes were his own.

  “What you’ll always do. First and last. So much it will get in the way of everything else. Think!”

  Leo waited and listened and tried to do as the voice said. He didn’t want to be in this place. He didn’t want to see behind the locked wooden door, with its crudely carved, dying heart, or use the big metal key on the table. More than anything, little Leo wished to sleep. To lay down his head on the table, close his eyes, think of nothing, embrace nothing but the dark which seemed, next to this crazed, inhospitable place, a warm and welcoming respite from the torments that were gathering around him.

  “Please,” the old voice said, and it sounded terrified.

  MAGGIORE LUCA ZECCHINI WAS A HAPPY MAN. HE WAS back in his beloved Verona after three days at a tedious conference in Milan. There would be a premiere of Il Trovatore in the Arena that evening, an event he would attend with a charming and beautiful tourist from San Diego he’d met on the train home the night before. And there was pranzo in Sergio’s, the little restaurant around the corner from the office, a place where a man could gather his thoughts. Lunch, for Zecchini, was a staging post for the day, a time at which one might reflect on a morning well spent, and look forward to a brisk afternoon of activity before shrugging off the dark, impeccable uniform of a major in the Carabin
ieri and re-entering civilian life. Few men enjoyed this small ceremony in the same way: as an ascetic exercise in self-detachment, not a quick opportunity for face-filling. Only one newcomer had, of late, entered the small circle of sympathetic friends invited to join Zecchini on occasion at Sergio’s. Thinking about that unlikely individual now, Zecchini’s mood became muted. Police work was never without its risks. He’d been with the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale since its formation in 1992. The world of art theft and smuggling, which he inhabited on a daily basis, was not immune to violence. Two fellow officers had lost their lives in the last six months mixing with gangsters trying to smuggle historic artefacts from Iraq through Italy on their way to Switzerland. All the same . . . some incidents seemed odd. Unnecessary. Inexplicable. And tragic, still, a week after the dreadful affair had appeared in the papers.

  Zecchini stared at his plate of pork ribs with a portion of greens on the side and wondered whether they would really taste quite so good now. He should have asked Gina from San Diego to join him. Women loved the uniform. He used to joke with Falcone about their sartorial differences. The man from the state police always wore plain clothes, aware that the ugly blue wouldn’t have suited him. Falcone wasn’t a man who fitted in easily.

  Then his eyes wandered down the street and met a sight Zecchini found both puzzling and of singular interest. Two men were walking towards him. One, tall and bulky in an ill-fitting grey suit, had a very ugly, scarred face and the physique of a boxer gone to seed. The second was an unusual foil: slight, young, short, in shirt and jeans, rather innocent-looking, except, as Zecchini saw when they got closer, in the eyes, which were determined and a little bleak.

  These two were not, he decided, men to cross. And they were, somehow, recognisable too, if only he could place the memory.

  Then the younger came over to his table, and asked, in a polite Roman accent, “Maggiore Zecchini?”

  “Yes?”

  The two men looked at one another, uncertain, it seemed to Zecchini, how to proceed. He thought about their appearance, and what they might do for a living. Then the connection clicked.

  “You’re just as he described,” he told them. “Sit down. I’m in need of company.”

  The bigger one was at the table in an instant, eyeing Zecchini’s ribs. The younger man pulled up a chair, close to Zecchini. There was no one else on the pavement. The young man clearly wanted to make sure they could talk in privacy.

  “He mentioned us?” the elder—Peroni, he recalled the name now—asked, sounding surprised.

  “There were times when he talked about very little else. I knew Leo only for a few months. We talked a lot. We became friends, I think. In spite of the different uniforms. It’s not impossible, is it?” Zecchini pushed away his plate. “How is he?” he asked, a part of him not wanting to know the answer. “I thought of visiting. But it seemed such a mess over there. Such an imposition. Besides, I don’t think an officer of the Carabinieri would be particularly welcome . . .”

  Peroni shrugged. “He wouldn’t know. He’s not recovered consciousness, not in a week. The doctors say it’s touch and go. Whatever happens, I don’t think Leo’s going to be back in the job again.”

  It was good news they even gave him some chance. From what Zecchini had heard, they’d thought Falcone was little more than a breathing corpse at one point.

  “That’s hard to believe,” he said.

  “I agree.” It was the young one who spoke. “Nic Costa. Gianni Peroni.”

  Zecchini extended his hand. “Please call me Luca. I asked that of Leo. I ask it of you. We’re acquaintances. Not colleagues. That makes some things easier. And eat, please. It’s been a while since I bought a state policeman a meal. Too long.”

  He called over the waiter and listened to their orders: meat for the big man, grilled vegetables for Costa. Zecchini was slightly disturbed to discover that, through his friendship with Leo Falcone, he felt he knew these men already.

  “You’re looking for work?” he asked, after the waiter had gone.

  The newspapers had been full of the aftermath of the incident in Venice. A commissario had been suspended pending possible manslaughter charges. Costa and Peroni were on enforced leave, which was often the precursor to disciplinary action.

  “We’ve got plenty of work,” Costa replied.

  It was, Zecchini thought, just what he expected. “That doesn’t sound too good. I thought you were supposed to sit at home and twiddle your thumbs.”

  Peroni laughed. “The problem is, once you’ve been under that cunning old bastard for a while, it gets decidedly difficult to do what you’re supposed to sometimes. You mean you never noticed, Luca?”

  Zecchini took a mouthful of his pork rib. It was cold. The meal was ruined, and he rather guessed it could only get worse.

  “We came with a gift,” Costa said. “Or rather a prize.”

  “It’s going to cost me?” Zecchini asked.

  Costa watched the waiter return with their food, then watched the man leave.

  “Nothing comes for free,” he said. “But, if we’re right, if we get lucky . . . with your help. It’s a prize I think you’d like very much.”

  Luca Zecchini listened to the two of them. It only took a minute to realise the last thing he’d be doing that evening would be watching Il Trovatore in the company of the delightful Gina.

  IT HAD BEEN MORE THAN A DECADE SINCE TERESA LUPO had abandoned medicine for what she saw as the more challenging world of working in a police morgue. Now she felt lost in a hospital. The Ospedale Civile of Venice seemed more like an entire quarter of the city than a medical institution. It ran through a warren of historic buildings, modern accretions, and storeys of blocks that seemed like apartments, until emerging on the bare lagoon waterfront between Fondamente Nuove and Celestia. Teresa couldn’t help but notice the institution sat bang opposite another staging post on the journey of life, the cemetery island of San Michele, whose brick walls blocked—happily, she thought—the view over to the Isola degli Arcangeli on Murano. The Venetians never did like to make more effort than was absolutely necessary.

  Three things happened the night Leo Falcone was hurried to the Ospedale Civile in a speeding water ambulance, siren wailing, blue light echoing in the rapidly descending darkness.

  First, she remembered how to yell at medics, good medics, people who were patently competent at their job, but just didn’t understand the small matter of priorities. A man with a head wound as bad as the one Falcone had suffered wasn’t in need of much analysis. He was a corpse in the making, screaming silently for someone to freeze the clock and keep him alive until a specialist could be got on the scene to work out if there was any way forward from this mess.

  Second, she discovered she’d do anything to stop Leo Falcone from dying. Theoretically, she didn’t want anyone to die, ever, even if that put her out of a job. But this wasn’t about theory. Whatever had happened between her and Falcone in the past, she now had some unexpected bond with this strange, distant, frequently arrogant man whose stricken body had been wheeled through the corridors of the Ospedale Civile at speed, navigating its spider’s web of corridors on a journey, it seemed to her, to nowhere.

  And third, she found out that she, and her Roman police pathologist’s card, still carried clout. When they got Falcone into pre-op and found that Venice’s one and only neurosurgeon was on holiday in the Maldives, Teresa simply screeched at them to do what they could to staunch the bleeding, then wait for orders.

  There was some luck in the world. Maybe a God even. Pino Ferrante had been at medical school with her all those years ago. All the way over in the racing ambulance ferry dashing across the lagoon, she had been remembering his hands, which were the most beautiful she’d ever seen on a man: long and fine and elegant, like something from a drawing by Dürer. Healing hands, that much was obvious too when he’d completed the training and entered the outside world of medical practice. Pino was now a prosperous neurology
consultant in his native Bologna, little more than sixty minutes away if he still drove a car the way he used to. And he was at home when she called, breathless, pleading.

  Less than three hours later Falcone was in the operating room, with Pino’s gentle, firm fingers trying to perform wonders she could only guess at, while the four of them, two colleagues-cum-friends, two women who’d found themselves dragged unwittingly into this wounded man’s life, waited on the terrace by the waterfront, swatting midges in the sticky night air, drinking endless plastic cups of bad coffee, asking themselves all manner of questions about the strange burst of violence that had torn through the Arcangeli’s palazzo, and Hugo Massiter’s party, that evening.

  Then finally, reaching a decision, one found in anger and a mute, shared hunger for some semblance of justice. One that didn’t require much effort, if they were honest with themselves. Or much discussion, because discussion just got in the way of what was needed.

  There were facts before them, Nic said. Staring them in the face, taunting. Gianfranco Randazzo worked for Hugo Massiter. That had been obvious all along. Randazzo had murdered Bracci to close down the case—and Massiter’s deal—wounding Leo Falcone, possibly fatally, along the way.

  It was meant to be a neat, tidy package, one that no one was trying to untie, to try to see what might lie inside. Venice would, Nic predicted accurately, be determined to swallow the story Randazzo gave them of that night, even though there were so many questions. Why had the drunken Bracci come to Hugh Massiter’s in the first place? What exactly had he hoped to achieve by taking Raffaella hostage while searching among the masks and the commedia dell’arte costumes for the man he wanted, who was Massiter, Nic said, surely? And why the hell would he bring along a handy piece of evidence, the keys with their telltale ribbon, just to complete the story?