The Venice conspiracy ts-1

by Michael Morley

  Teucer tries to sound calm. 'The gods have made us as we are. Our true selves need no alterations other than those they deign to give us.'

  'Quite.' Pesna takes a final look in the mirror and beckons his servant. 'Tonight, make sure this is polished with bone of cuttlefish and pumice. Tomorrow I wish to be seen in a better light.'

  The slave runs off and the magistrate turns his attention to the young seer who is admiring a bronze. 'My courtiers tell me I have the finest collection of art outside of Greece. I am thinking that, once a year, I shall let the commoners in to view the pieces. What say you? Is this gesture likely to win me favours from the gods?'

  Teucer is sickened by the man's vanity but knows he must watch his tongue. 'To patronise the arts is to shine light, not only into the present, but also into the future of those who inherit our lands. It follows then that the gods may reward you in the afterlife for such benevolence.'

  'Good. This is what I wanted to be told.'

  'Though, if I may be so bold as to add' – he glances around – 'it may also work to your favour to collect some works that honour the gods as well as mere mortals.'

  Pesna grows reflective. 'I will be vigilant in my search for such pieces. Thank you.'

  Teucer feels confident enough to push his luck: 'My wife is a sculptress, she would be delighted to advise or take commission from you.'

  Pesna looks irritated. 'Then send her. But I have asked you here not so that you may tout for family business but on a more serious matter.' He walks a half-circle around the netsvis, staring intently into his face.

  Teucer feels a fluttering in his stomach.

  'I have a problem, Netsvis, and I need the guidance and approval of the gods.'

  'I will try my best, Magistrate.'

  Pesna steps close and glares at him. 'Best is good – but only if your best is good enough.' He pauses and studies the young seer's face. Teucer hopes he cannot see the fear in his eyes. To Pesna, fear is more important than respect. 'Etruria is growing,' he continues. 'The states are now numerous, the total populace close to a third of a million. I need new lands, new riches, new challenges, or Atmanta will be but one reed by the riverside when it should be a forest stretching further than the eye can see.' He peers again at Teucer. 'You understand my needs and ambitions, my dedication to the generations still to come?'

  Teucer nods.

  The magistrate changes his tone, speaks more confidentially. 'Some moons ago, there was a very disturbing murder. One that has tongues wagging and threatens to become the stuff of widespread storytelling.'

  Teucer's heart skips a beat. He'd thought he was out of trouble.

  'The victim was a grown man. He was slaughtered like a wild animal. His guts pulled out and his liver cast away. I presume you have heard of this?'

  Teucer nods respectfully.

  'You and I – dear Netsvis – know that the liver is the seat of the soul. Its removal can prevent a person passing into the afterlife.' He pauses and reads assent on Teucer's face. 'Such acts can panic a community like ours.' For the first time the magistrate also looks worried. He tries to take the fear out of his voice. 'An elder told me such a murder would be the work of Aita, the lord of the underworld. Could this be so?'

  Teucer senses a chance to offset the blame. 'It is possible. Aita has monstrous power, he takes souls in any way he can. Normally, I would expect him to send a succubus to seduce a man and take his spirit during ejaculation, however-'

  'Gods forbid!' Pesna interrupts, thinking of his own pleasures and vulnerability. 'Sweet gods in the sky, do not say such things!' He takes a moment to clear the image from his head and return to his wishes. 'Netsvis, let me get to the point. I will shortly embark upon a campaign of great importance. I cannot do this if we are cursed or seen to be cursed. Do you understand?'

  Teucer's not sure he does. 'What would you have me do, Magistrate?'

  The politician flaps his arms. 'Sacrifice something. Work some charms to ensure our settlements are peaceful and clear of rumours. I cannot have my plans disrupted by unfriendly gods, or even stories of unfriendly gods. Do I make myself clear?'

  'What would you have me sacrifice and to whom? Perhaps three different animals, all in honour of the trinity, Uni, Tinia and Menrva?'

  Pesna snaps. He grabs the seer by the front of his tunic. 'In the name of all the deities, just do your job, man! Do I have to think for you? Sacrifice women and children – I don't care, provided it works.' He pushes him away. 'Don't fail in this. I warn you, if you fail me, then next time I send Larth for you, it will be to have him vent my dissatisfaction upon your body.'

  CHAPTER 7

  Present Day Rio di San Giacomo Dell'Orio, Venice The Carabinieri arrive by boat, silent and solemn beneath a dawn sky the colour of beef Carpaccio.

  Smart young officers pull on peaked caps and adjust white-holstered Berettas as they climb from the craft.

  Tom watches them rolling out crime-scene tapes, taking notes, doing the same things that cops do all over the world. Back in Compton he regularly saw the LAPD mopping up after the latest drive-by, the detritus of drug warfare and social failure.

  It turns out that the old man who discovered the body is called Luigi. He's a retired fishmonger in his seventies who suffers from insomnia and poor English. After leaving Tom with the body, he'd almost banged the hinges off the door of a nearby house to get someone to call the cops and a water ambulance.

  Tom kneels by the corpse and blesses himself. It's an automatic reaction. Although he no longer has the power to administer Extreme Unction, the words still come.

  'Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.'

  He kisses his closed thumb and forefinger and gently crosses the victim's forehead.

  By the look of it she's about seventeen. It's hard to be more specific. Someone's really gone to town on her with a knife. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of stab marks all over her body. Chunks of flesh are missing. Her face ravaged by death. The multiplicity of wounds is strange. So many. Seemingly random – yet no doubt all part of some pattern in the killer's mind.

  'Signor, could you come with us, please?'

  The voice is firm – an instruction, not a request – made in good English by a young officer, radio in hand. Tom hears him through an echoing tunnel – his focus still on the work of evil in front of him.

  'Signor, please!'

  Tom feels a hand under his elbow. Helping him up. Or is it to prevent him running? The thought startles him. 'Where are we going?'

  'To the Carabinieri offices. Not far from here. Near the Rialto. We need to get a full statement.'

  'We can't do it here?' Tom does a one-eighty turn to see if there are more senior officers to appeal to.

  'Signor, please. It will not take long.' The hand on the elbow is firmer now. Expert pressure. Persuasive. Unyielding.

  'Hey!' Tom shakes off the white-gloved fingers. 'You needn't get a hold of me.' He brushes his arm as though rubbing dirt from a best suit. 'I'm fine to come, I want to help.'

  All eyes are on them. A slightly older officer moves their way, unbuttoning his holster as he does. Someone lifts the fluttering crime-scene tape.

  Tom Shaman suddenly wishes he'd stayed in bed that morning. In fact, right now, he wishes he'd never come to Venice in the first place.

  CHAPTER 8

  Major Vito Carvalho watches his men lead Tom away.

  Another murder is the last thing the fifty-year-old wanted. He'd transferred to Venice to avoid this kind of thing. Moved here to unwind and relax, not be a hotshot with a desk stacked high with files and riddles.

  'What have we got?' he calls to two young lieutenants by the canal edge.

  Valentina Morassi and Antonio Pavarotti are cousins, the kind that come from big families and have been close ever since they reached the age where it was okay to say all girls didn't stink and all boys aren'
t pigs. He has a vacancy for a captain in his unit and they are both good candidates.

  Vito claps his hands to get their attention. 'Come on, cut the family gossip! Tell me quickly so my entire day isn't ruined.'

  They turn towards him and move aside. The victim is laid out on black sheeting. A mass of mutilated flesh, oozing canal water and clusters of insects from every wound and orifice.

  'Female, fifteen to twenty, stabbed too many times to count,' Antonio reads from a notebook. He's late twenties, small, slim and unshaven. Doesn't look anything like a cop. Tries hard not to. He usually works undercover and was only a day away from a new job before this call caught him on the hop.

  Vito glances at the dead girl, then puts his hand reassuringly on the shoulder of the female lieutenant. 'You okay, Valentina?'

  'Si. Grazie, Major.' The twenty-six-year-old covers her mouth and prays she won't hurl. 'Scusi. It's just' – she looks at the young girl's eyes, part-digested by crustacean and fish – 'I've never seen anything like this before.'

  Vito feels her pain. Remembers his own first floater. Stomach churning. Head and heart full of mixed-up emotions. 'None of us has ever seen anything like this. Go back to the station, Valentina. Write things up. See if you can figure out who this dead girl is.'

  Antonio touches her arm comfortingly as she turns away from them. She feels a little ashamed that she isn't yet experienced enough to swallow her shock and just get on with the job. 'Grazie,' she calls. She exits in style. Strong strides. Head high. Shoulders straight. Just in case her boss is watching. And she knows he will be.

  'She has a sister of about the same age,' explains Antonio, defensively. 'It kind of made it personal.'

  Vito pulls on latex gloves and crouches by the body. 'It is personal, Antonio. You don't get any more personal than the taking of someone's life.'

  'Si.'

  Vito's eyes trace the wounds. Dozens upon dozens of them. 'Cazzo! What in God's name went on here?'

  'The ME is on his way. I counted more than three hundred stab marks, then you arrived and I stopped.' He looks worried. 'To be honest, I'm not sure where I stopped. Not really certain where to pick up from.'

  Vito smiles. 'Don't worry. We'll describe them as multiple wounds.' Antonio says something but the major doesn't hear him. The girl was pretty before some lunatic took a blade to her. The kind of daughter he and his wife would have loved to have had, if only God had chosen to bless them with children. 'Wait five minutes then call Valentina and make sure the squad is doing the basic work. Check last-minute bookings for flights out of Venice. Put teams on the train and bus stations. Look out for lone, male travellers, anyone seeming edgy. Have someone ring around hotels for early check-outs.'

  Antonio scribbles in his notebook. 'We've already got search teams looking for bloodstained clothing and the knife.' He nods towards the canal. 'What do you want to do about the water?'

  Vito stands up. 'Get dive teams in there and examine every drop of it. Like I said, murder is personal.'

  CHAPTER 9

  When Valentina Morassi gets back to headquarters the dead girl's father is waiting in the cold reception area. He's reported her missing and still doesn't know the awful truth.

  Valentina quickly learns that the victim is fifteen-year-old Monica Vidic. A Croatian schoolgirl, visiting Venice with her dad as something of a bonding trip. An ugly divorce had ripped the family apart and forty-two-year-old Goran had thought the trip would help his daughter deal with it.

  They'd gone to St Mark's together, and then she'd stormed off after dinner while arguing about where she wants to spend her weekends. The father thought he'd find her back at the hotel but she never turned up. Soon after midnight he and the concierge had searched the bars, clubs and train station. The paperwork on Valentina's desk shows they even reported her missing to the Polizia, but her body was found before an alert made it into the morning briefing sessions.

  Valentina gets both a male and female officer to accompany Goran to the morgue, though from the photograph he's given her, there's no doubt the butchered girl in the canal and the smiling kid doing a thumbs-up on a funfair ride are one and the same. When they're finished, they'll take him back to his hotel. Sit with him while he phones his ex-wife, then see if he needs a doctor and help in dealing with all the bureaucracy that comes with death in a foreign country.

  More notes on her desk tell her that colleagues have already finished interviewing the retired fishmonger who found the body. She reads Luigi Graziuso's statement on her way to the interview room where the other witness is waiting. The old man says he was out walking his dog when he came across the girl's body dangling from a rope. At first Luigi thought the girl had slipped and was caught half in and half out of the water, so he shouted for help. It was only after screaming his lungs out and pulling for several minutes that he realised she was dead.

  It was then that the young American had arrived. He'd sat with the dead girl while Luigi went to the door of an apartment building and got someone to call the Carabinieri.

  Valentina pauses outside the interview room and looks through a pane of wired glass at the American witness: Tom Shaman. A tourist with no fixed abode. Strange. She studies him for a while. Normally, witnesses who've found dead bodies don't look as calm as he does. There are usually outward signs of distress. Edginess. Depression. A head hung low in reflective thought. But not this guy. He looks at ease. Comfortable. Bored, if anything.

  She pushes the door open and he looks her way. Bright brown eyes. Some natural warmth. Tall when he stands. One of those guys who meets the world with a bone-crushing handshake. 'Buongiorno, I'm Lieutenant Valentina Morassi.' She looks again at her notes. 'You're Tom, Tom Shaman?'

  'Yes.'

  'Sorry to have kept you waiting. Please sit down. Do you talk Italian?'

  He smiles. A nice smile. Easy. Maybe practised. 'Not enough to get us through this.'

  'Okay. Then please forgive my bad English.'

  Tom doesn't think there's much to forgive. She seems smart. Bright as a button, as his mom used to say. 'You sound word perfect. Did you learn English at school, or did you live abroad?'

  She pointedly ignores his question. 'Can you tell me what happened this morning? How did you come upon the young woman in the water?'

  Tom understands her need for brevity. 'I was out walking and heard a man shouting. I crossed some bridges and found this old guy trying to pull the girl out of the canal. Some small dog was barking and running round. I guess it was his.'

  'It was. A terrier.'

  Tom wonders what happened to it. Guesses it ran off home. 'The old fella couldn't manage to get her out. Though he was doing his best. I think he thought the girl was still alive.'

  'Did you?'

  His face shows the first flicker of sadness. 'No.'

  'And then?'

  'I finished pulling her out. By that time the old guy had gone off to get help. I sat with him until your officers showed up, and then I was asked to come here.' Tom glances at his watch. 'That was about three hours and one bad cup of coffee ago.'

  Valentina frowns. 'I'm sorry, you're right, the coffee is not good. But as I'm sure you can see, we're a little busy with more important things than being waiters at the moment.'

  'Glad to hear so.'

  Valentina notes the riposte. Normally she'd like that in a man. But not one sat in an interview room. 'You told one of my colleagues that you are American. You live in LA and you're just here on holiday?'

  Tom shakes his head. 'Not quite what I said. I am American. I no longer live in LA, and I'm not here on holiday, I'm just passing through.'

  'Through to where?' The question comes out more aggressively than she meant.

  He thinks about telling her it's none of her business. Contemplates explaining that recently he's been to hell and back and now just wants to go to his hotel and have a long bath.

  Valentina repeats herself. 'Where? Through to where?'

  'I really don't know yet. Maybe
London. Maybe Paris. I've not seen much of the world and I'm going to spend some time putting that right.'

  It's the kind of comment ex-cons make when they're just out of the slammer. Valentina makes a note to come back to it. 'So what about LA? That's not home any more?'

  'No.'

  'Then where is?'

  'For tonight and the next seven days, home is gonna be here. Then I'll see.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'What I said. Home is pretty much – in the words of the song – wherever I lay my hat.'

  Her face shows she's not in the mood for a sing-along. 'Why did you leave LA, Mr Shaman?'

  Tom leans back. This is a tough one to explain. Though he knew it was coming. It was inevitable. And judging from the scepticism in her eyes, she's not going to buy anything but the full, checkable truth. So he's going to give it to her. Or at least, most of it.

  'Because, some months back, I killed someone.'

  He tries to sound casual, but guilt sticks like tar to every syllable.

  'Actually, that's a lie – I killed two people.'

  CAPITOLO V

  666 BC

  The Sacred Curte, Atmanta Teucer thinks of many things on the long ride back to his home. Relief that he and Tetia have not been discovered for what they are. Murderers. Even greater relief that they are not to be subjected to the brutality of Larth. And of course he thinks about what he must do to satisfy Magistrate Pesna. Most of all, though, he is thinking about Tetia.

  He is worried about their relationship, and about their unborn child. A gap is opening between them. He can feel the distance. Day by day, degree by degree, it grows. He knows it's foolish, but he blames the baby. The stronger the child gets, the weaker the love between him and his wife. Almost as though it's draining affection from her.