by David Hewson
“What? Oh, Hugo!”
“I know,” he said coldly. “She was eighteen and I was forty-one. What could I have been thinking of? They would all have said that, wouldn’t they? If they’d been given the chance.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Amy objected. “Not at all.”
“No need to apologise. They would have said it. Even her mother, who knew my intentions, naturally, though the money seemed to make up for everything else. Susanna was perfect, you understand. She would have played the greatest houses. We would have been the happiest pair.”
“Did anyone know?”
“I thought not. We were discreet. We amazed each other and knew that we would one day amaze the world. So we kept ourselves secret. The Sunday after that last concert, we planned to issue an announcement and be gone before the paparazzi arrived. But that damned conductor knew. I realise as much now. He coveted her from the start, I think, and somehow lured her away when the concert was over. I waited and waited, and she never appeared. Then the next morning...”
He stared at his hands. “And there you have it, Amy Hartston. One old man’s secret which he expected to take with him to the grave. Instead I tell it to you. Explain that, please.”
She took his hands, which were warm and smooth and soft. “I can’t,” she said.
He touched her cheek lightly. She did not move.
“Is that why you have these things, Hugo?” she asked, looking at the apartment. “All these possessions?”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “In London I have a Tiepolo of Cleopatra. It is perhaps the most beautiful object I own. But it is still an object, Amy. It is lovely, but it has no warmth, no life. As I said, life is everything.”
He traced a finger on her cheek.
“Do I remind you of her?” she asked.
“Not in the slightest,” he answered immediately. “She played better than you ever will. But you’re more beautiful. You have more confidence and character, I think. Susanna was a blank canvas who demanded, always, that I decide what should be there on the surface.”
Her mouth felt dry. Her head ached a little. “Was that good or bad, Hugo?”
“Neither. That is what she was. You are what you are. I can admire and love both.”
“We cannot—” she began to say.
“The world is what we make it,” Hugo said, interrupting, then gently moved his right hand to the neck of her evening dress, pressed his fingers down, and cupped her breast through the loose fabric. “You’ve never been with a man, Amy, have you?”
“No,” she replied, her breath now shallow.
“Good,” he said firmly. He removed his hand from her breast and ran his fingers down the front of her dress, reached down beneath her knees, picked up the hem and lifted it, exposing her legs. Slowly, as if performing some kind of examination, he moved both his hands between her thighs, rubbing his thumbs on the soft skin there, reaching upwards until his fingers touched cotton. Then he lifted the evening dress further until it exposed what his hand felt and, with a gentle circular movement, slid his thumbs beneath the elastic, probing.
Amy sighed, not knowing herself what the noise meant. Hugo’s feverish fingers worked at her. He removed them and, in a single movement, lifted her in his arms. He held her like a child, staring into her eyes as he carried her into the bedroom, where every wall seemed a mirror.
She saw their reflection in the glass, watched it all the time as he lowered her on the bed, then tore at his own clothes until he knelt by her, face suffused with red. She had seen a boyfriend naked once before, and refused his invitation. Hugo was, by comparison, huge, almost terrifying in his size.
She looked at him. “Hugo,” she said. “You must wear something.”
“I believe not,” he said, and took both hands to the front of her dress, then tore the thin fabric apart in a single vicious gesture which jerked her body off the bed. She struggled out of her underwear, fearing he would rip that from her too. His head came down to her shoulder. She felt his teeth bite sharp and hard into her neck, and cried out softly from the pain.
“Hugo,” she repeated, pulling at his neck so that he could see her face. “I’m frightened.”
“You’ve nothing to fear. With me, you never will.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to run from the room. Amy remembered the previous Saturday, when she had offered herself so openly to Daniel and he had refused, setting these events in train.
Her head fell down on her chest. She refused to look him in the face. “I don’t... want to,” she said quietly.
His hands moved again, fingers poking, searching, entering.
“Oh, but I do, my love,” he answered. “Now, if you please...”
46
The Roman magistrate
I STAYED WITH MARCHESE ON THE QUIRINAL, A LITTLE way down from the palace where the Pope was in residence, fleeing the heat and malaria of the Vatican. With my mind in such turmoil, I was grateful to discover I had a genial host. Marchese occupied a small patrician mansion with his wife and a single manservant, Lanza. Marchese was elderly, with a stooped back, an awkward gait, and a shock of white hair. Yet his eyes were as bright and sharp and querulous as those of a child. For all his cheery demeanour, I suspect few villains had found their way past this chap in his prime.
I arrived late at night, after two days, each of ten hours, on the road, and was grateful to be offered a bath, fed a good meal, then despatched, exhausted, to bed. The Marcheses had never had children, I’ll warrant, since both master and mistress fussed around as if I were their offspring. It had yet to dawn fully upon me that I was in Rome, with all its sights and possibilities, for I climbed into a comfortable divan on the second floor and fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, waking only when a cock crew and the sun, bright and warming, fell through the curtains.
I spent the morning scanning through Marchese’s manuscript. Leo had his limits—we would not publish absolutely anything. It took only a little while to discover that this particular commission would pose no problem, and could even shift a few paid copies. As a writer, Marchese possessed a slightly rambling fashion, though nothing which a spot of editing couldn’t improve. But he had flare. While there were dull patches, which I skipped, there was much of interest in these tales of city low-life.
Most of those who pay the House of Scacchi to see their names in print do so out of vanity. That smudge of ink upon the page bestows immortality in their own eyes, I imagine, though if they saw the sorry pile of unsold volumes in our cellar, they might feel differently. Marchese did not fit this description. His purpose, as he explained to me, was to set down his methods of investigation in the hope that others in his trade might learn from them and, over time, find better ways of bringing the guilty to book. To him the law, as it stands, is a random process. On most occasions some hapless victim is first sought out, and only then does the search begin for evidence by which to establish his culpability. Marchese believes the first step should be to establish facts and wonder where they lead, not follow the gossiping throng to wherever it happens to point the finger and arrest the first person with a guilty look on his face. I did not say as much, but this seems to me an idea that is too revolutionary for the Italians, who have hot blood and a thirst for instant satisfaction. The Germans or the English, perhaps, could stomach the slow and painstaking practice which Marchese recommends. I doubt it would satisfy many of those who hang around the side entrance of the Doge’s Palace when a plot’s about and the old man’s temper’s up, counting those unfortunates who go in, then noting how few come out again.
Each chapter had some melodramatic title: “The Tuscan Fragment and a Spray of Camellias.” Or “How an Egyptian Cat May Bark at Midnight.” The magistrate had, however, a higher intent than mere entertainment. He wished to inform his readers of the process he described as “forensic mechanics.” He also believed that by setting down personal characteristics of the scoundrels he apprehended, he would dispel the notion that
they were wicked by nature or choosing, a separate species altogether from the average, honest citizen who walks the streets.
“The greatest delusion,” Marchese declared, waving a fat, wrinkled finger at my face, “is the belief that this world must be divided into black and white, the sinner and the righteous. Nowhere is there evidence for such a nonsensical notion. Each argument has many facets, each individual a panoply of traits, some praiseworthy, some obnoxious, and most of them inherited, I suspect. It is how each man selects— or has selected for him—a particular version of events and set of characteristics that makes the difference. I am as close to being a murderer as you. Only fate, a lack of temptation, and, I hope, a certain steel within our character save us from the scaffold. Always beware those who would tell you this world falls into two camps—good or bad. They are either fools or, worse, manipulators seeking to enhance their power by gulling those poor, sad folk among us who crave some distant enemy to explain their present plight.”
He sniffed the air. A most delightful aroma was making its way out of the kitchen. A mountain of meat and potatoes and two small jugs of wine later, we were back in the armchairs. I felt sated and sleepy, and glad, too, that he had taken my mind off events in Venice. Whatever was happening with Rebecca and Leo, however much progress Delapole had made in heading off my uncle from his vile plans, nothing I might think or do in Rome had any consequence.
“Money,” he said, and I covered my cup as he swung a flagon of grappa my way. “I’ll pay the going rate and nothing more. I know you Venetians are the very Devil when it comes to negotiations.”
I had no mind to haggle with this lovable old chap, though I doubted he was short of a bob or two. So I cast aside the inflated price list Leo used as an opening gambit and, to foreshorten matters, gave him the real one, which was, in all honesty, as cheap a deal as he might get of any Venice publisher.
He slapped me gently on the shoulder. “Oh, come, Lorenzo. There’s always space for bargaining in these affairs. How much for cash on the nail, eh?”
I waved my hand, beginning to feel sleepy from the food and drink. “As I said. This is the price, sir. We should waste no more time on these matters.”
He looked at me and sighed. “Do you know? I cannot decide whether you are the most uncharacteristic Venetian I have ever met, or the most cunning of them all.”
“I am a country lad from Treviso, not the city. I lack the wit for all this mental juggling.”
“Hmmm. Now, that I do doubt. You’ve been juggling with me all the time. Thinking of one thing back home while you dealt most professionally with me here.”
I said nothing. I was not to be drawn.
“Very well, then!” He rose from his chair and held out a hand. “Let us put the sordid matter of capital behind us, shake upon this contract, then take a whiff of putrid Roman air. It’s boiling hot out there, my son, but I’ll not let you go without a few of the sights. What do you say?”
I took his outstretched hand. Marchese was the first man of Rome I had ever done business with, and a true Roman he was at that. “I say it will be, like everything else in your company, the greatest pleasure.”
And so we found our way around the greatest city on the face of the earth. With Marchese as my guide, always keen to point out a landmark here, a piece of crumbling statuary there, Rome came alive. I walked with Caesar and Augustus, trembled at the presence of Nero, and stood silent before the Colosseum. I felt like a child in the presence of a generous, kindly uncle who possessed the key to the most wondrous secret garden in the world. By the banks of the Tiber, the old man showed me the former site of the wooden bridge of the Ponte Sublicio, which Horatius and his comrades had so bravely defended against Lars Porsena and the entire Etruscan army. Then he led me to Tiber Island, a ghetto for the city Jews, who had been there under curfew since Pope Paul IV had them herded behind its walls, under pain of death, some 170 years before.
At this last I became thoughtful, which he mistook for tiredness (the old man’s stamina, in spite of his lameness, never seemed to wane provided he paused now and then), and so we returned to the Quirinal.
In the house we chatted idly. Old Marchese scarcely took his eyes off me. Eventually he put down his glass and said, “Lorenzo. Your mind is not entirely upon our conversation.”
“I am sorry, sir,” I replied. “There are personal matters with which I need not trouble you. I apologise if I seem distant.”
“Sometimes these things are best discussed with others.”
“Sometimes. But not on this occasion. Were it otherwise, be assured I would not hesitate to discuss them with you, since rarely have I enjoyed so much congenial company in one day, and with someone who began it as a stranger and ended, I hope, a friend.”
“I should be most offended if you regarded me otherwise. To prove as much, I shall ask you, as a friend, to settle one last quandary which you may resolve at your leisure, in bed, on the coach back to Venice, or later as it pleases you.”
He went to the bookshelf, took out a thick volume, then reached behind it and retrieved a sheaf of paper. When he brought it over, I could see it was written in the same careful scrawl used for the manuscript I had read that morning.
“There is a missing chapter in what I showed you, Lorenzo. Not all my cases were successful, though that is not why I withheld this one. I had wondered whether I should show this to anyone. I still do not know if it is fit for the light of day. You must help me. Read it, and I shall abide by your decision.”
I took the pages, then rose and said good night to him and his wife. The day had been long. Tomorrow’s journey would be tiring. Yet in bed, in the quiet, small room on the Quirinal, I found sleep difficult. I drifted, half-dreaming. Images from ancient Rome assaulted me: Caesar dying beneath a rain of bloody blows; Caligula murdered by his bodyguard; the head and hands of Cicero, butchered by Augustus’s men and displayed for all to see upon the speaker’s platform in the Forum.
Then these ancients disappeared, and in their place I saw Rebecca, naked, pale-faced, and frightened, her hands covering her modesty, apparently unable to speak. We were in her room in Venice, as if it were still the scene of our last meeting when we had argued, and she, I believe, wished to reveal something but lacked the courage or opportunity. I opened my mouth, but no words appeared. Her eyes pleaded for my aid. I was unable to walk towards her. Then, with an effort that made the tears tumble down her cheeks, she lifted a single, white hand from her body, showed me the palm, and uttered four words: “There is no blood.”
I awoke, shaking, as if in a fever.
It was impossible to sleep. Seeking something to distract my confused mind, I reached for Marchese’s manuscript, lit a candle, and began to read.
An hour later I understood the dream and much, much more. With cold dread in my heart, I raced along the corridor to hammer on my host’s door, demanding entrance.
47
Hard questions
GIULIA MORELLI SAT OUTSIDE THE CAFÉ IN THE SQUARE of San Cassian, watching Biagio squirm on the hard plastic seat. The sergeant was off duty, out of his uniform, and, moreover, in the company of a detective.
“You look uncomfortable,” she observed. “Relax. I don’t bite.”
He swore. “I can’t believe I agreed to do this. What’s wrong with your people?”
“All in good time,” she answered. “You know why I feel like this?”
“Yes,” he groaned. After the interview with Rizzo, she had probed him about his background: college in Rome, his home city. Venice was an accident. There were no relatives. Biagio could not be a part of any clique, not unless he had been recruited since his arrival two years ago, and that seemed improbable. She had to trust someone. He seemed the best option.
“When I have the evidence,” she said. “When everything is so obvious it can’t be stopped. Then I can move with some hope of success. If I raised any suspicions now, I would be halted the moment I mentioned the wrong names. Then we’d both re
gret it.”
He nodded and cast a sour eye at the ancient brickwork of Ca’ Scacchi across the rio. Biagio could be trusted, she felt. But that did not mean he was a willing participant.
“The English kid isn’t going anywhere,” he noted. “We’ve been sitting here for an hour. He hasn’t even stuck his head out to get some breakfast.”
“You’re right,” she agreed, and wondered what that meant. If the newspapers were right, Daniel Forster was a brilliant musician. His first composition, a masterly re-creation of a Baroque violin concerto, by all accounts, would receive its première at La Pietà the following Friday. Yet he behaved as if he were adrift in the city. The deaths of Scacchi and the American had affected him; of that she had no doubt. But there had to be more to his lassitude than simple grief. She had set Biagio to tail him. He reported only one visit to La Pietà, on Monday evening. Daniel Forster had spent almost the whole of Tuesday inside Ca’ Scacchi, making just a single phone call, and that to the undertaker (she had discreetly placed a tap on the line). He left the house once only, to buy wine and some precooked lasagne. It was now eleven in the morning on the Wednesday. The moment she assumed would be the greatest achievement of his life was only two days away. And he was behaving like a recluse, as if the palpable excitement now building around La Pietà— which was reflected in the growing presence of the international media—were nothing to do with him.
“We could sit here forever,” Biagio moaned.
“I agree.” She had hoped to be able to follow Daniel in the street, catch him off guard, away from what he surely now regarded as his home territory. Biagio was right, though. Daniel Forster seemed to have retreated behind the shell of Ca’ Scacchi for good.
“Come,” she said, then threw some coins on the table and left the sergeant struggling to keep up as she strode across the small bridge to the old mansion.
He answered the door looking a mess: hair dishevelled, eyes red. His breath stank of wine. His eyes refused to meet hers.