by David Hewson
After ten months he had assembled a story of a kind and come to realise that it could be complete only if he were to tell another tale: that of how the lost concerto came to be found. So, alongside the tragic account of Oliver Delapole, another emerged from his mind: of Hugo Massiter, an act of deception, and a wily friend named Scacchi who came to pay for his cunning with his life. There were lacunae in this account, as several interested publishers were anxious to point out. But Daniel was adamant: this was fact, not fiction. It could have no cosy, rounded closing act. Mysteries would always remain in the story, and he was unsure that even Hugo Massiter, were he ever to reappear, could explain them all.
A deal was concluded. A book made its way into print with a rapidity Daniel found surprising. The anonymous concerto, as it was now becoming known, continued to create a stir around the world. No publisher wanted to miss the bandwagon. By the time he qualified for early release, twenty months into his sentence, Daniel Forster’s book was an international success. He was mildly wealthy, with his own mansion in the heart of the city and the promise of a continuing career as a writer. A return to Oxford never entered his head. There remained a more important task.
One Monday in September, Toni called. He had an address and also a suggestion. He had been looking for many weeks and remained unsure. People changed. There were no recent photographs. It made sense to see her first, in public, before risking the embarrassment of visiting her at home.
The following day Daniel sat on the number one vaporetto as it crawled across the lagoon towards the Lido. He thought of his first voyage on these flat, uncertain waters, just over two years before in the good ship Sophia, captained, for a while at least, by a dog named Xerxes. No one noticed him. He now wore a thin moustache, and his hair was more closely cropped. This change in his appearance helped keep the curious away.
He watched the jetty bob towards him, unsure of his own feelings. Once ashore, he turned south for a mile, towards the residential area where the market was held. This was another side of Venice, more ordinary, more like the outside world. The Lido had cars and buses. The stink of diesel sat alongside the perfume of oleander bushes.
He crossed the canal that led to the Lido casino, then followed a broad, tree-lined avenue which ran to the shoreline. The city hung low in the distance across the lagoon, a tantalising horizon dominated by the campanile in the square. The street was now given over to a busy market. Daniel put on a pair of sunglasses, then strode forward and soon found himself lost in a pushing, grumbling mass of people arguing vigorously among stalls of clothes and vegetables, fish and cheese.
It took only minutes to find her. Laura stood at the counter of a van near the exit, haggling over a vast chunk of Parmesan. She wore the white nylon housecoat. Her hair was tied back as before. She seemed not a day older. He could remember the smell of her, the touch of her skin. Then she was gone, out towards the main road. He followed, but she had already caught one of the orange buses that meandered along the long main drag of the Lido, from the little airport in the north to Alberoni at the opposite tip of the island. Shaking, he pulled out the address Toni had given him, went outside, and caught the next bus south.
It took ten minutes to reach Alberoni. He had never travelled this far in the lagoon. There were low fields of vegetables and marram grass, some small restaurants and hotels, a handful of shops. The houses were rural villas set behind their own fences. They had orange shutters and front gardens with roses in them.
He asked directions of a young woman with a child in a pushchair. The house was down a cul-de-sac leading to the sea side of the narrow spit of land. He walked down the dusty, potholed road and saw the white housecoat again. She was behind a double iron gate freshly painted green. A young man with blond hair was with her. He wore a white cotton T-shirt and jeans and seemed handsome, with a finely chiselled, tanned face. Daniel guessed that he had been gardening, cutting the elegant rosebushes which formed an ornamental shape behind the gate. She had arrived with her shopping. They had been talking. Then the young man bent down, kissed her on both cheeks, and took her groceries.
Daniel’s mind was spinning. He stopped in the middle of the road and stared at them. The man turned, bags in hand, and looked at him, puzzled. Then Laura turned too. He was too distant to see her expression. He walked forward until he was no more than six feet away, separated from them by the gate. Her hand went to her mouth. The man said something inaudible, in an accent which sounded American. Another figure appeared, shorter, dressed identically to the one who had kissed Laura, but much older, and with pebble-thick glasses. He stared at Daniel and opened the gate, beckoning. Daniel walked into the grounds, unable to take his eyes off her.
“Guess it’s time to be out of here, John,” the younger man said carefully, placing an arm around the other. “Laura’s got a guest.”
“A man?” the older man asked.
“Seems so. You got a name, friend?”
“Daniel,” Laura interrupted. “We haven’t seen each other in a while. This is John. And Michael.”
“First fellow I’ve seen here,” John said, somewhat baffled. “Oh, well. Had to happen. Are we going to that première or what?”
“Sure. Any minute. The film festival,” Michael added by way of explanation. “We’re kind of in the business.”
John waved a set of car keys. “Then let’s leave these young people to themselves. You drive. I’m going to drink.” With that he wandered off towards the garage. A white Alfa stood outside, pristine, gleaming.
“Hey, Laura,” Michael said wryly. “You can take him inside. It’s OK by me. I won’t count the candlesticks when we get back.”
She cast him a cross glance, which Daniel recognised instantly, then said, “Come!”
He carried the shopping bags. They heard the gruff roar of the Alfa as they entered the door. She led him into a large open room with a sparkling Bechstein grand by the window, then sat down in an armchair, put her feet on the coffee table, and stared at him. He perched on the piano stool opposite.
“You look older,” she said.
“You look just the same.”
“Flattery. I’m going to seed.” She reached behind her head and unfastened her hair, then shook it free. “Aren’t I?”
Now that she had let down her hair, he could see it was much longer. “Not that I’ve noticed.”
Beyond the full-length windows was an ornate garden in the English style, with rich herbaceous borders of pink, white, and blue, a sundial, and a colonnaded pergola covered with red roses. Daniel admired it, then asked, “Where do you find them, Laura? It’s like Scacchi and Paul all over again.”
“Nonsense,” she replied firmly. “John and Michael are quite different. Michael is a film producer. And John...helps. They have money. They have taste. They’re honest. Most of all, they’re absent for most of the year, leaving me here to look after this place on my own.”
“And you enjoy that?” he asked, wishing he could erase the note of disapproval from his voice. “Being alone?”
She looked at him, not offended as he had expected. “Daniel. I’m deeply sorry for what happened. I read about you being in jail, and it made me furious. Why didn’t you argue? I think we all went a little crazy that summer. I went a lot crazy, but then you know that. You saw me. All the same.” She hesitated. Her eyes went to the garden. “I didn’t wish to see you again,” she added. “I didn’t want you to find me. I wish you had not found me now.”
“I see,” he said softly.
“I’m sorry. I have this new life. I don’t wish it disturbed.”
“Of course.”
Her nose flared, another familiar gesture he recognised. “Well then,” she said quietly. “That’s that, it seems. You have your career. Your writing. Ca’ Scacchi.”
“I didn’t want Ca’ Scacchi, Laura. Half of it’s still yours. All of it, if you like.”
“Hah! That’s why you come! To bribe me!”
He laughed and watche
d her try to stifle the amusement in her face. “Not at all. I came to make you cross. It struck me that you may not have had the opportunity for this in a while. You seemed to enjoy it so much once.”
She pushed back her chair until her face was in the shade. “Please don’t play with me, Daniel. I want nothing of Scacchi’s. I want nothing of yours. That part of my life is over. Leave me alone.”
“I will,” he said, “but you must do something first.”
“What?”
“Play for me. Play the Guarneri. You must have it. The music too. I had so much time to think in that prison. Play, please.”
Her face came out of the shadow. “Are you insane, Daniel? What are you talking about? I play nothing. I’m a maid.”
“No,” he said firmly. Daniel took the old newspaper cutting out of his pocket and placed it on the table between them. She did not look at the story, with its garish headline and the photograph of the girl. With her longer hair, the resemblance between Laura and the teenage Susanna Gianni was striking but by no means undeniable. Yet he could understand why Scacchi kept Massiter from the house. “You pretend to be a maid, but I know who you are—Susanna Gianni. Whom Hugo Massiter tried to possess and almost killed, twelve years ago. Who has been hiding ever since and now is determined she should be alone because she wrongly believes there’s no other way to survive. Perhaps to protect me also. You’re like Scacchi—always deceiving in order to protect. That’s why you pushed Amy at me, against my wishes. You wished to save her from Massiter too. It’s a mistake, Laura. We all need the chance to choose, the opportunity to learn from time to time.”
“Daniel!” Laura shook her head and stared at him. “What are you talking about? This girl is dead!”
He remembered the day it came to him. He was in a café near the Frari, wondering about the missing violin and Massiter’s hunger for it. “No. It’s the only possible answer. Giulia Morelli suspected as much, too, and tried to tell me before she died.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
He had this in his head, as clear as the tale of Oliver Delapole. “Massiter fooled me into thinking it was the Guarneri he sought. But he’d no interest in musical instruments. He didn’t even own one. People were what mattered most to him. He’d always found something odd about Susanna’s supposed death. He knew he didn’t kill her. He told me so himself.”
She did not flinch and simply sat there, arms folded, looking at him as if he were mad.
“That was why he ordered Rizzo to supervise the opening of the grave,” he continued. “He could not be there in person, naturally, since it would draw attention to him. Yet he needed to satisfy his curiosity that Susanna was really dead. He’d no idea the Guarneri was in the coffin or, to begin with, that his lackey had stolen it. But as soon as the fiddle came on the market, he saw his opportunity. He knew that if he could acquire it and recognise it for the one he’d bought a decade before, then perhaps you were alive and wished to sell it out of necessity. And from that point on, he would seek you out again and reclaim what he thought of as his.”
She raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Your next work will be one of fiction, I presume?”
He ignored the taunt. “Moreover, Scacchi understood the peril of the position immediately. He knew the fiddle was inside the casket, because he had, I suspect, reluctantly placed it there at your insistence. He discovered the coffin had been lifted early, with an authority Massiter had forged. Scacchi’s purpose in acquiring the instrument from Rizzo was not for medical treatment or to pay off some gangsters, as he wanted us to believe. It was twofold. To protect you, as he had been doing for a decade. And, at some stage, to restore you to yourself. I believe that last part was imminent when Massiter killed him. You said on the day of the eel contest that Scacchi was about to share his secret with you. What else could it be but the violin? He knew you, Laura, and loved you. He didn’t want you to hide behind this disguise forever.”
She cast him a withering look. “This is rubbish, Daniel. Did you lose your sanity in that institution?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I found it. Scacchi’s ruse would have worked, too, were it not for Rizzo. Massiter discovered his treachery and probably tortured the entire truth out of him before he died. At that point, Hugo knew that Scacchi had the instrument and no intention of selling it. Why would a man like Scacchi do such a thing? There could be only one explanation. He knew Susanna lived and wished to keep her identity hidden. That was why Massiter visited Scacchi and Paul that night, to extract the truth out of them. And that’s why they died. To save you.”
“You do a disservice to their memory,” she said flatly. “These are such sad fantasies. Besides, if I’m that poor dead girl, whose body was in the coffin?”
He smiled. She had struck at his weak point immediately. “I don’t know. I asked Piero last week—”
“Piero?” she asked, outraged. “Why pester that simpleton with your daydreams?”
“I asked him what had happened, and whether he had by any chance kept some items of Scacchi’s for safekeeping. He blustered and pretended to be angry with me, naturally. As you’re doing now.”
“Piero’s soft in the head!”
“No,” Daniel insisted. “That’s a game you play. He’s a good and loyal friend and has been from the beginning. What I believe happened—you may correct me if you wish—is that he put you in Scacchi’s care the same night Massiter attacked you. Perhaps he found you. Perhaps you found him. I don’t know. Scacchi listened to your story. He knew Massiter for the man he was, knew that he wouldn’t desist from pursuing you. I think also...”
He paused, not wishing to hurt her unnecessarily.
“This tale grows ever more fantastic,” she said sourly. “Do go on.”
“Your mother died a year after this happened. I don’t wish to add to the pain.”
She looked at him, wide-eyed, a little frightened now, he thought. “What do you know of my mother?”
“I suspect she believed you should have gone along with Massiter. You were poor. She saw this as some happy accident, perhaps. Your own feelings were secondary. The fact that Massiter appalled you, that he was violent and wished to make you one of his possessions, meant nothing to her. He tried to ensnare Amy through her parents. Much the same trick.”
“Theories! Fairy stories! You are trying to deconstruct the past like it’s something out of that book of yours. And there’s still a dead girl in the coffin.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “Piero provided the body. He worked in the morgue, after all. I went through the papers from that time. A small boat carrying illegal immigrants from Bosnia capsized off the lagoon the same weekend. Two people died, a girl in her teens and a young boy. Scacchi could manipulate people as much as Massiter when he felt like it. With Piero’s assistance, he would have had no difficulty organising the paperwork so that the corpse of a foreigner found its way into the rio instead of the crematorium. Then, conveniently, he would identify it as Susanna Gianni. I saw his powers myself.”
“Hah! And you think the police would be fooled by that?”
“Not for long. But that is where Massiter’s nature worked in your favour. When he feared his attack would be discovered, he exerted all his influence to shift the blame, finally inculpating that poor conductor to bring the investigation to an end. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone looking too closely at that corpse. There might have been some physical evidence there which would have led to him.”
She was silent. Daniel’s mouth felt dry. He had laid out his evidence just as he had carefully planned over the months he had spent assembling it. Yet if Laura continued to deny everything, there was little he could do.
“I don’t know if you were his lover before that night,” he continued tentatively. “As Amy was. But I’m sure that something happened that evening, more than his beating you. Something so evil that it made you wish to become another person, to divest yourself of your entire identity, even to the point of insisting Sca
cchi bury your instrument in the coffin.”
Her eyes were on the garden, her face turned away from him.
“You must realise that Scacchi had second thoughts on that last matter,” Daniel said. “He was not simply keeping you hidden from Massiter by purchasing the Guarneri. At some point he hoped, I believe, that you would resume at least part of your true identity. I think...”
He hesitated again, seeing from her posture that she was retreating further into herself.
“My love,” he said firmly. “I’ve been to that place. I’ve walked down that tunnel, stood in that room beneath the earth. I’ve seen the paintings and all his other possessions. I’ve looked at that low bed in the corner—”
“Stop!” Laura’s head was in her hands. He rose, walked across the room, knelt in front of her, touched the warm, soft skin of her fingers.
“I’m sorry.” He said it quietly. “I don’t mean to torture you. Only to say that I, too, have seen inside Hugo Massiter’s head. I know what lurks there.”
She pulled away her hands and stared at him, an older person now, one who had witnessed something he had been spared. Daniel felt guilt for inflicting such pain upon her. “You know nothing. You haven’t the faintest notion what it’s like to be devoured by that man and see no escape.”
“I’ve some idea,” he replied. “I saw it in Amy’s face.”
“And she’s free,” Laura said, half-amazed. Her hand ran through his hair, gently touched his moustache.
“Perhaps,” he replied. “As free as one gets. I wonder if any of us escapes him completely. He no longer owned you, yet he marked your life, so much that you became another person and withdrew from the world into Ca’ Scacchi.”
She gave him a cold look. “Did I? Is that what you want from me, Daniel Forster? A confession?”
He said nothing, feeling foolish.
“If this is all true, Daniel, what business is it of yours?”
“You know why it’s my business.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t have it. This is the past, and one shouldn’t return to it. You’re such a clever one, Daniel. Why could Scacchi not have chosen a fool?”