The Nosferatu Scroll

by James Becker

  ‘You think those poor girls were left here before the festival yesterday, then?’

  ‘Judging by the condition of their bodies, I do. And I think if there are any clues to be found they’ll be inside the tomb, and probably on the corpses themselves. But until the officer who’s been appointed to lead this investigation arrives here, they certainly won’t open the grave.’

  The carabinieri sergeant walked back to where Bronson and Angela were sitting, a uniformed constable following behind him.

  ‘This officer will now take a written statement from you, Signor Bronson, and from your companion,’ he said.

  About ten minutes after Bronson had read and signed his own statement, and had translated into Italian Angela’s much shorter statement – which basically corroborated what he had said – and she had signed it in her turn, another half-dozen men arrived at the scene, one of whom was immediately approached by the sergeant.

  The two men talked together for a few minutes, then the sergeant pointed towards Bronson and Angela. The other man followed his glance, and nodded. Then he walked across to look closely at the tomb, the sergeant following. Even from where Bronson was sitting, perhaps twenty yards away from the tomb, the smell of putrefaction was unpleasantly strong, and he wasn’t surprised at the expression of distaste on the senior officer’s face as he moved forward to the hole in the slab and peered inside, a small but powerful torch in his hand. Then he stepped back and walked briskly away from the grave.

  Bronson and Angela seemed to have been temporarily forgotten, and although Angela wanted to get back to the hotel, Bronson was keen to stay, at least for a few minutes more, and watch the recovery of the bodies. And, as he pointed out, they hadn’t yet been told that they could leave.

  The Italians were working in much the same way as English police officers would have done in the same circumstances. Once the tomb was opened, the photographer moved forward again to record the scene. He was followed by several of the investigating officers and a man Bronson thought was probably the pathologist. Only then was the first body lifted out of the grave and transferred immediately into a body bag.

  Bronson used Angela’s digital camera to record the operation.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she muttered in disapproval.

  ‘I’m making a record of what’s happening,’ he replied. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘Just in case what?’

  ‘I don’t know, but this is a peculiar situation we’re involved in, and having a photographic record seems to be a good idea.’

  With the first body removed, more photographs were taken, and then the operation was repeated to lift out the second corpse, and then the third. Once all three body bags had been closed, the unpleasant smell began to dissipate, and several of the Italian officers removed their face masks. Further checks were run on the tomb, and it was carefully searched for any other possible clues.

  ‘I’ll ask the sergeant whether we can go now,’ Bronson said at last.

  With Angela beside him, he walked around the taped-off tomb and approached the investigating officers.

  ‘Is there anything else you need from us?’ Bronson asked in Italian.

  The sergeant glanced towards the more senior carabinieri officer. ‘Inspector Bianchi?’

  The officer glanced at Bronson and Angela, looked as if he was going to speak, and then shook his head.

  ‘You’ve both made statements,’ the sergeant said, turning back to Bronson, ‘and we know where you’re staying, so that’s it. Just try to keep away from graveyards for the rest of your time in the city. We really don’t need any more bodies.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Bronson promised.

  On the way out of the cemetery, they passed the vampire’s tomb and Bronson noticed immediately that the position of the ropes had changed. Obviously the site had been disturbed.

  Motioning Angela to wait, he stepped across to the grave and lifted the base of the tarpaulin so that he could see inside the tomb. The few bits of wood from the coffin that had survived the passage of time were scattered around. There was even evidence of digging in the soil around the grave, and marks on the stone that suggested it had been hit by some hard metallic object, perhaps a hammer or a chisel.

  Bronson dropped the tarpaulin back into place, and then rejoined Angela.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Somebody has searched that tomb,’ Bronson replied. ‘And I think we both know what they were looking for.’

  20

  The hotel management had been most apologetic. They had no idea when the thief had broken into their room, or how he had managed to get past the reception desk without being challenged.

  Actually, Bronson thought that getting past the receptionist desk would be the easiest part of the operation, but he hadn’t said that to the duty manager who’d met them in the lobby with the unwelcome news.

  They couldn’t stay in their original room, obviously, because the door would no longer lock, or even close, so they’d been given a slightly larger room on the floor above instead.

  The following morning, at breakfast, Angela was subdued, but clearly angry.

  ‘Yesterday was horrible,’ she announced, as they finished the meal. ‘Do you really think that it was a random break-in?’

  Bronson shook his head. ‘No, and nor do you. I think most robberies in hotels are carried out by the staff, because they’re the people who’ve got access to the room keys. Breaking down the door is rare, and it seems far too coincidental that our room was the only one in the building to be targeted.’

  ‘So you think they were looking for the diary?’

  ‘That seems the simplest explanation, yes.’

  ‘So what are we going to do about it? Should we give the book to the police?’

  ‘Definitely not. They’ve got their hands full, according to what I read in the local paper this morning. One of their most senior detectives was killed yesterday, gunned down in the street on his way to meet an informer. And in any case I’m not sure how interested the carabinieri would be in a two-hundred-year-old diary written by some woman who thought she was a vampire. In fact, I’m not sure why anybody, apart from perhaps a social historian, would have the slightest interest in it.’ Bronson shook his head. ‘But the reality is that somebody seems desperate to get their hands on it.’

  ‘Do you think it could have anything to do with the bodies of those three poor girls you found in that tomb?’

  ‘Frankly, no,’ Bronson replied, ‘apart from the coincidence of the two graves being quite close together. I don’t see what link there could be between a woman who’s been dead for two hundred years and a serial killer operating in Venice today.’

  He drank the last of his coffee. ‘So what would you like to do today?’ he asked. ‘And, before you tell me, we’ll be sticking together. I’m not prepared to risk you being targeted because somebody wants that diary.’

  ‘That’s what I was going to suggest as well,’ Angela said. ‘We’ll take the diary and my laptop with us again. And something else struck me about this attempted robbery—’

  ‘I have a feeling I know what you’re going to say,’ Bronson interrupted. ‘The only people who knew that we had been at the scene of that first vandalized tomb were the carabinieri. I talked to two of them in the cemetery that night, and then two other officers appeared here at the hotel the following morning. As far as I know, nobody outside the Venetian police force has any idea who we are or how we’re involved.’

  ‘Exactly. And that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.’ She sighed. ‘I still wish I knew why somebody wants that diary.’

  ‘I might have a theory about that as well,’ Bronson said, and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a folded sheet of paper. ‘I found this story in the newspaper archives, in the international news pages. Apparently there was some kind of a road improvement scheme on the outskirts of a Czech town called Český Krumlov. When the workmen dug up a piece of land as part of their r
oad-widening operation, they found an early eighteenth-century grave containing eleven bodies. That’s not unusual, but what puzzled them was the way three of the corpses had been buried.

  ‘According to this article, bodies were usually laid to rest lying in an east-west direction, but these three had been positioned so that they lay from north to south. And one skeleton had been treated in exactly the same way as the body we saw in the grave on the Isola di San Michele: it had been decapitated, the skull placed between its legs, and a stone rammed into its mouth. All three of the skeletons had been pinned to the ground with heavy, flat stones, and another one had a hole in the left side of the chest directly above where the heart would have been, which was consistent with the sternum having been pierced by a sharp object. The article doesn’t actually say that it was a wooden stake, but that’s pretty obviously what they think did the damage.’

  Angela nodded, staring at the picture that accompanied the story. ‘It sounds like a typical vampire burial. Quite a few of these have been recorded, most often from places like Czechoslovakia and Hungary.’

  ‘And there’s an interesting postscript to the story you’ve got in your hand. In the last paragraph it says that they took the skeletons to Prague, but before the remains were transported, somebody broke into the building where they were being kept and stole several bones from each body. Someone seems to be collecting vampire relics – those bones in Czechoslovakia, the head from the grave here in Venice – and they’re obviously after that diary as well.’

  ‘You’re talking like there’s some kind of vampire conspiracy,’ Angela said, smiling.

  ‘Well, it’s the only explanation that seems to fit the facts. Look,’ he leaned forward across the table, ‘you and I both know that the vampire myth is exactly that – a myth. But I’m beginning to think that there are people right here, in this city, who not only think vampires were real creatures of flesh and blood, but who are actively trying to collect relics from them. And maybe they’re even trying to become vampires themselves. It bothers me.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Angela said. ‘You really think there are people who are that deluded?’

  ‘Well, somebody’s certainly collecting relics, and they’re doing it now. That’s unarguable.’

  Angela shivered. ‘I’m beginning to think that coming to Venice for a holiday was a really bad idea. We might have had a quieter time in Transylvania, the way things are going.’

  Half an hour later, they left the hotel together, and made their way through the streets towards the city centre. They’d decided to walk first over to the Piazza San Marco, and then explore the Castello district, before picking up a vaporetto from the Celestia stop that would take them back to their hotel.

  Bronson was very aware of their surroundings as they walked through the narrow streets of the Cannaregio area, but he saw nobody who concerned him.

  They crossed over the Grand Canal into the Santa Croce district on the Ponte degli Scalzi, which literally translated as the ‘bridge of the barefoot monks’ and was one of only four bridges which spanned the Canal Grande. Suddenly, the door of one of the tall houses that lined the street was pushed open directly in front of them and a man stepped out. He was so close that Bronson and Angela had to step quickly over to the left to avoid walking into him. The man turned towards them, his face and voice full of apology.

  But even as Bronson tried to wave aside the man’s explanation, he was suddenly aware of two other figures emerging through the open doorway behind them. He reached out to try to protect Angela, but before he could pull her to him, something crashed into the side of his head, and he fell senseless to the ground.

  21

  Marietta Perini stared in horror at the cockroach climbing up the wooden leg of her bed. It was almost the size of a rat, easily the biggest insect she had ever seen. She lay still, clutching the filthy blanket in both hands, paralysed with terror, because that was just the vanguard of the attack. From the other side of the bed, by the stained concrete wall, dozens of enormous insects were climbing up towards her. She could see their probing antennae above the edge of the mattress, could hear their feet scratching as they drew closer to her.

  Then the first cockroach reached her feet and, with a sudden spurt, ran straight under the blanket, heading for her bare legs. She felt the insect’s horny carapace rubbing along the side of her calf, felt the movements of its legs as it moved up her body, but she simply couldn’t move an inch. Then a tidal wave of cockroaches swept across the edge of the mattress, heading straight towards her, and finally she found her voice.

  She screamed, the noise echoing off the walls of the cellar, and suddenly found she could move. She threw the blanket from her body and jumped off the mattress on to the floor, the chain attached to her left wrist wrenching her arm back as she did so.

  And then she woke up. For a few seconds she stood stock still, panting with terror, eyes wide as she stared around her, looking at the nightmare that had become her reality. There were no giant cockroaches, of course, but there were three or four of the insects scuttling about on her bed.

  With an expression of disgust, Marietta flicked them off with the blanket, and checked the mattress and her clothing carefully before she got back on to the bed. She hadn’t expected to sleep at all, her mind whirling with images of insects and rats, and whatever that nameless creature was that she’d heard howling the previous night, and what sleep she’d got had been restless and disturbed, punctuated by vivid and disturbing images.

  Then her thoughts shifted, changing direction, and an image of her boyfriend’s face swam into her mind. He would be worried sick about her. He had always been possessive, perhaps too possessive, forever wanting to know where she was, where she was going and who she was with. In the past she’d found it slightly irksome – she was, after all, a liberated Venetian woman – but right then she thanked her stars for Augusto’s personality. He would, she knew, have tried to contact her, to call her mobile, when she hadn’t arrived at his apartment that evening as they’d arranged. Then he would have called her parents, and after that he would have raised the alarm.

  Somewhere out there, beyond the island, the search would already have begun. People – a lot of people – would be out looking for her by now, of that she was certain.

  She thought of her parents, sitting in their small apartment at the north-western end of Venice, near the railway station, worrying about her, wondering where she was and – knowing them as she did – probably fearing the worst. More than anything else, she wished she could see them again, or at least talk to her mother one last time. But that, she knew, wasn’t going to happen.

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily, because she’d just heard the cellar door rumble open. She didn’t want to show any sign of weakness, of emotion, to her captors. It wouldn’t make any difference to her fate, but keeping up her calm façade gave her something – some tiny bit of pride and strength – to hang on to.

  One of the guards stepped into the cellar and walked across to her, a plastic tray in his hands.

  ‘Why are you keeping me here?’ Marietta asked, as the man lowered the tray to the floor and turned to walk away.

  ‘You’ll find out,’ the guard snapped, as he’d done on every previous occasion. But this time, as he turned to leave the cellar, he looked back towards her for the briefest of instants with something like pity in his eyes, and added a single bleak sentence that drove all other thoughts from her mind. ‘You’ll find out tonight, because we’ve just found the second one.’

  22

  Bronson opened his eyes, and immediately closed them again against the glare of the sun. For a few seconds he had no idea where he was or why the side of his head ached so appallingly. When he lifted his arm to touch his skull, his hand came away red with blood. He levered himself up on to one elbow and opened his eyes again. For the first time, he became aware of a small group of people surrounding him, their faces grave with concern. Two men w
ere kneeling on the ground beside him. One was repeatedly asking him something, while the other was trying to help him up into a sitting position.

  Bronson reached again towards the injury on his head, then suddenly realized that he couldn’t see Angela. This drove all other thoughts from his mind, and he staggered clumsily to his feet, staring around him.

  ‘Gently, signor,’ one of the men said. ‘You’ve had a bad fall. We’ve called for an ambulance.’

  But Bronson wasn’t listening. Angela was nowhere in sight, and a sickening realization dawned on him: the men who had attacked him had taken her. He quickly took stock of his situation. He didn’t know exactly how long he’d been unconscious, but it could only have been a matter of minutes.

  ‘There were some men with me,’ he said to the man standing closest to him, ‘and a woman. Did you see where they went?’

  ‘No. I only saw you lying on the street.’

  Bronson stared at the building from which he’d seen the man emerge, seconds before he’d been attacked. Shaking off the restraining hands of one of the men, he walked somewhat shakily across to the door, and tried the handle, but it was locked. That, too, was unsurprising.

  For a few seconds, Bronson tugged at the handle in impotent fury, and then his rational mind reasserted itself. The one place in Venice where Angela certainly wouldn’t be was inside that building. He had no doubt his attackers had dragged her inside as soon as the assault had taken place, but she’d have been within its walls only long enough for them to subdue her, and then they’d have taken her to some other secure location. Both the streets and buildings in that part of Venice were narrow, and many of the houses ran from one street to another. By now, she could be in any building or even on a boat, heading for another part of the city or out to one of the islands.