Every Picture Tells a Story

by Gregory Dowling

  “You want to be of help.”

  “Yes. Simple as that.” She looked straight at me.

  “Well, that’ll make a change.”

  I saw her flush a deep red and she turned back to the sink. “Okay. You win.” She peeled free a bandage and bent down to place it on my cheek. Her face was now set hard and her eyes firmly avoided mine. “And your hand,” she said. I stuck it out and she cleaned that too in silence.

  I stood up and said, “Thanks. If I get desperate, I’ll come running to you.” A pause and I added, “But really desperate.”

  “Okay, okay. You’ve made your point.” She turned to the cupboard and put the box back in and without turning back said, “Leave me, will you?”

  “What? Oh sure, you want to be alone.”

  “I want to use the loo.” She still didn’t turn round to face me.

  I crossed the waiting room, smiling bravely at the people there who stared at my bandages, and then went down the stairs feeling anything but brave. I opened the door onto the campo. In the far distance there were just two stray students ambling in the direction of Campo Santa Maria Formosa. The voice of one of them drifted across the square, “Well, Piers insists he must have been high on something. But I must say I thought he was rather nice.”

  I felt quite touched. Then the other one answered, just before they left the campo, “But did you see that really awful anorak he had?”

  The square now seemed empty. I walked in the opposite direction of the two students. I had no immediate aim in mind; I just wanted to get away from that area as quickly and as anonymously as possible. After a couple of turnings I was in the Calle del Fumo, a long straight alley always fairly busy with people going to and from the Fondamente Nuove and the boat stops for the islands. I walked halfway down it, listening to the brisk footsteps and occasional voices, and then before reaching the end, turned off left down a wide but empty alley. Some seconds later I heard footsteps enter the alley after me.

  I started walking faster without turning around. I turned left again so that I was going back on myself. I heard the footsteps become hesitant and then enter the alley. I still didn’t look round. I was now almost running, and I turned right. This was an area of narrow unfrequented alleys, quiet little squares, and sottoportici. Perhaps I’d made a mistake in not going back to the busy Calle del Fumo. But I suddenly realized the footsteps were no longer following me.

  My first reaction of course was intense relief, but it was followed by a kind of anger mingled with curiosity. I wanted to see who the swine was who’d scared me into a cold sweat.

  I made my tiptoeing way back to the end of the alley and, against all the rules of all private-detective and secret-agent handbooks, peered round. A small figure in a duffle coat (or Montgomery as the Italians call them—and this one looked as if it might have been through a few battles with the field marshal) was walking back the way he’d come—away from me.

  And I started following him.

  I suppose it was his size that decided me—and perhaps too the way the overlarge coat made him look like Dopey in Snow White. He just didn’t seem dangerous.

  He turned right into the alley that led back to Calle del Fumo. I hurried up close behind him: he obviously hadn’t read the handbooks either. As soon as there were other people in sight, I clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  He spun around with a sharp squeaky cry—this too was reassuring—and I recognized him. It was the bearded man I’d rescued from the ladder at the university.

  14

  “HELLO,” I said.

  “Er—hello—hello—hello.” The bush-animal eyes were swiveling left and right, as if looking for a convenient bush—or to check that I was on my own.

  “So you got down from that ladder all right,” I said.

  “That what? Oh, that, yes, of course. And I got the book. Em, would you mind letting go of me?”

  “Yes, of course.” I did so. “But would you mind telling me why you were following me?”

  “I was? You were following me.”

  “Only because you followed me first,” I said. “It was a kind of ricochet reaction, if you follow me.”

  “If I follow you? Ah, I see, yes. Well, perhaps I was a little.”

  “Yes, you were a little. But not very well.”

  “Em, let’s go and have a drink and I’ll explain.”

  “A drink?” This wasn’t quite what I’d expected.

  “Yes. Then we can both explain.”

  “And what have I got to explain?”

  “Ah, well, rather a lot. That’s why—well, that’s why I was following you. Because I was curious.” He started walking down the alley with sudden leg-twinkling speed. As he walked he talked. “You see, I don’t make a habit of following people around. Not even at the university, where some of the professors expect you to do so—with your tongue down—or out, if you see what I mean. But, well, I was curious. Well, more than curious. A little worried.”

  “Worried?”

  “Yes. Cioè, my first reaction was to—to forget about it all, but then, well, I started to feel a little too worried.”

  “Forget what? Worried about what?” I was finding it hard to keep up with him, both in his walking and his talking.

  “Well, I was made curious by certain things I read on the papers—cioè, in the papers—and things I heard at the radio—cioè, on the radio. Let me put them in order. On Friday an Englishman comes to me and asks me about my old colleague, Toni Sambon, an ex-terrorist—or at least, ex-fìancheggiatore—a supporter of the terrorists. Then the next day I read in the Gazzettino about an Englishman who falls in a canal, apparently pushed by a certain Signor Michele Busetto. Okay, so far nothing so special. Many Englishmen in this city—I don’t even think about the two things. Then this afternoon, while I’m preparing to go to the university, I hear on the radio that this Signor Michele Busetto has been killed by terrorists. Now, I expect I’m not the only person to remember that this Busetto was the man in the paper the previous day. Also on the radio they say that he sold antiques. At the university an hour later I remember a little curious thing—the Englishman looking at Toni Sambon’s horrible lamp—and I look at it myself, by chance you could say, without really thinking about it, and I see the name Busetto.” He looked at me as we paused outside a bar—the first direct glance at my face. “Do you agree that these are too many coincidences?” He said it as apologetically as if he’d caused the coincidences.

  “Yes,” I said. “So why didn’t you go to the police?”

  He gave a half smile and a quick jerk of a shrug. He pushed opened the door of the bar. “What will you have?”

  “Un’ombra,” I said, happy to get the chance of showing off a little Venetian.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Very good. Anca mi.” He ordered two glasses of Refosco. When they were in our hands, he said, “Well, cheers, bottoms up.” Obviously he too liked to show off his knowledge of not-always-appropriate idioms. We both moved a little away from the barman. “We might as well introduce ourselves properly, I’m Alvise. Alvise Ballarin. I already know your name.” He thrust his hand out in a sudden jerk of a movement that had me jumping back. Then I understood and shook it, smiling rather foolishly.

  “So why not the police?” I asked again.

  He looked almost pained this time. “I—I well, I suppose you could say it’s a typical Italian reluctance to get mixed up with the authorities if there are other paths to follow.” He paused, then went on quickly: “And also there is the fact that this Englishman didn’t seem to me to be a murderous type: I thought I’d prefer to speak to him and find out his version of the facts first.”

  “So why didn’t you speak to me? Why all the secret-agent stuff?”

  “The what? Oh, I see. Ah, well—” He looked into his wine in embarrassment and started twisting his finger in his beard. “Yes, sorry. I—I wanted to speak, but then I couldn’t think what to say, so, well, I thought I’d just follow you and try and find o
ut something about you. I was, well, I suppose I was a bit embarrassed.”

  “And how did you find me?”

  “Well, I tried phoning the hotel they mentioned in the Gazzettino first, but they told me that you had left. So I thought a little. It struck me that if you were looking for Toni Sambon, a person you must surely have spoken to is his sister. I know her—not well but enough. I telephoned to her shop and asked her about this Englishman called Martin Phipps. And she told me you were teaching at the Britannia School. So I went there straightaway and I saw you walking away in the direction of the Fondamente Nuove. And then—well, then I started following you. Sorry.”

  “Did Francesca ask you why you were asking?”

  “Of course. I told her, more or less. I asked her what she knew and she said you were looking for a picture. A painting by Cima da Conegliano. She hadn’t heard about the murder of Busetto. She seemed quite—quite upset when I told her. Worried. For her brother, I think.”

  “Ah.” And a teeny bit for me, I fondly and sneakingly hoped.

  “But I didn’t want to say too much on the phone.”

  “Ah,” I said again.

  “So you knew about this murder then?”

  “Er—” Well, it was a bit late to clutch my hair and say a gaping “What?” I said, “Yes. I heard it on the radio.” Then, after a pause: “At the hotel. I didn’t get the details. It was the landlord’s radio downstairs and I just caught a few words and I didn’t want to call attention to myself by going down to listen in. It was the terrorists, wasn’t it?”

  “It would seem so.” He darted one of his quick intent looks up at me and went on: “The police received a phone call with the usual message about un porco borghese having been giustiziato for his crimes against the people. And they found his fingers had been cut off. This makes them think it’s the same people who committed the other murders.”

  I said, “Did they, er, see anyone?” I made this very casual.

  “There was apparently someone still at the scene of the crime when they arrived, which made them suspect a trap, but he escaped. But now, em, shall we hear what you have to say about the whole thing? About these strange coincidences?”

  I said, “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m not in a hurry.” He smiled. “We could have another drink. And who knows”—darting me another of his rare direct looks—“I may want to help.”

  I suddenly thought, Why not? I’d been on my own for too long. I felt a great need for a confidant and I trusted this man. There was something a little mysterious about him—occasional evasive looks and moments of embarrassed shiftiness—but overall I found it difficult to take seriously the idea of him as a conspirator—not with that Dopey duffle coat and those big bush-baby eyes. If those eyes occasionally avoided looking at mine, and he perhaps avoided certain subjects, well, I suppose he was just of a naturally nervous disposition. So I said, “Okay. But not here. Let’s go walking.”

  “Of course. Anywhere particularly?”

  “Just not toward the center. I mean nowhere with too many people.”

  We left the bar, walked through a couple of small squares, along a porticoed fondamenta, and then around the cramped but picturesque apse of the Miracoli church, and I kept talking. I told him everything, my meeting with Toni, the visit I’d been paid by the two thugs, my investigations in Venice, my conversation with Busetto, and subsequent watery incident, my conversation with Zennaro, and the threatening letter at the hotel. Well, everything up to a point—up to the point of the murder: I halted before my discovery of the corpse. I suppose I just decided it was less complicated to stick to the story I’d given him so far—the story that made me look a little less of an outlaw than I actually was. He listened intently, turning and darting occasional quick looks at me and saying, “Sì, sì, ho capito,” and nodding like a toy dog in a car’s back window. I finished by telling him of the strange attack inside the school while I gave my lecture.

  “I see, I see,” he said when I’d obviously finished. We were now walking through Campo Santa Maria Formosa, which was fairly busy but big enough to feel safe. He’d moved on from toy-dog nods to sorrowful shakes, as if despite his questions he could in fact have done without knowing all this. “So—so now what?”

  “How do you mean, ‘now what?’”

  “Well, there is obviously murder involved now. Do you still intend to keep away from, em, from the police?” He mentioned them with his usual apologetic note.

  “Yes,” I said. Then, realizing that this had come out far too quickly, I added, “I don’t know anything that could be of any possible use to the police.”

  “Ah, ah.” He was silent for a moment and then said. “You realize that these killers probably got onto Busetto because they too read the Gazzettino. In London they torture you to find out what you know about where Toni is, and you tell them you don’t know. Then a few days later they read you are in Venice fighting with an antique dealer.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve thought of that. And yes, it does make me feel pretty sick to think I was responsible for—”

  “No, no,” he interrupted. “That isn’t what I wanted to say. Besides, I think that sooner or later they would have discovered something about Busetto and things probably would have finished in the same way for him. He was mixed up in a bad business, and, well…” He drew his finger along his throat in a gesture that expressed a kind of bloody inevitability. “Povero bastardo. No, I’m just saying that there is something you know about the motives of the killers.”

  “They’re looking for Toni. I don’t think that’ll help the police very much. And besides I don’t want to get Toni involved unless necessary.”

  “He is involved. You mean you don’t want the police to know that. Toni made such a favorable impression on you then?”

  I looked sharply at him. There had been just the faintest shade of irony in his voice. “Not exactly,” I said. “He seemed a bit ineffectual, to tell the truth. But, well, I know Francesca doesn’t want him mixed up with the police again.”

  “Ah. That is understandable. She has—she has great family loyalty.” He smiled. “Please don’t think I’m criticizing. I have no great desire to go to the police myself—as you see from my coming to you. But you have thought that the police will probably want to speak to the man Busetto pushed into a canal just two days before?”

  “Yes. I’ll wait till they do, though. I’m not going to offer myself voluntarily. I’m an Englishman on holiday. Of course I don’t read the local newspapers.”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “You can try this line.” He sounded a little doubtful.

  “I will.” I didn’t tell him that my worry was that they would then check with the English police about my background and get a confused story with a mention of drugs. I wondered if there was a Venetian proverb about not crossing bridges prematurely.

  “And I suppose this Zennaro is not likely to go to the police himself.”

  “Hardly. He’ll probably be packing his bags now. Like Osgood.”

  “Which will be a relief for Francesca.”

  “Yes.”

  “So we should all just keep quiet and pretend nothing has happened,” he said.

  “Well, for the moment.”

  “Ye-es. It’s a nice idea—but…” He shook his head again. “I suppose my trouble is I just feel I have to understand things properly. I’m an academic, you know. Puzzles irritate me.” He sounded apologetic as ever. “Shall we just try and resume the facts, to get them clear?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  We were walking toward the Ruga Giuffa, one of the alleys out of the square, and it was rather too crowded and cramped for my liking. I swung him around toward the quiet Campiello Querini and he hardly noticed the change in direction. He scratched his head vigorously with both hands and started walking faster as if his legs supplied dynamo power for his brain. “Let’s start with Toni. He and his companions were responsible in the 1970s for stealing three p
aintings, one of which turned up in England. Right?” His head jerked to me and I nodded. “These paintings had become, as far as they were concerned, the property of the Red Brigades—or the New Proletarian Front, or whatever they called themselves.”

  “Er, excuse a silly question,” I said, “but isn’t property theft?”

  “Private property is theft. Everything belongs to the people, and the New Proletarian Front were the people, you see.”

  “Of course they were,” I said. “Silly of me.”

  “Now they tried to ransom these paintings but no one was interested. And so maybe it was at this time that Toni made the acquaintance of Busetto, in order to find another way of making money on these paintings so that they shouldn’t become mere pink elephants for them.”

  “Er, I think you mean white elephants.”

  “If you say so. Well, anyway, we can’t know whether Toni was doing all this on his own account, or with the agreement of his companions. In theory, of course, the New Proletarian Front would not like to have dealings with the totally corrupt world of the art market—”

  “Hang on,” I said in vague protest.

  “—but all terrorism is about the end justifying the means, so probably they didn’t let this get in their way. But possibly, as I say, Toni may have arranged this on his own account—off his own wicket?”

  “Off his own bat,” I said.

  “Indeed, if he did, it would suggest one reason for this murder, since Toni and Busetto could be considered as having jointly stolen the property of the New Proletarian Army, that is the people. And indeed that would seem to be the symbolism behind the cutting of his fingers. With the other murders we had tongues cut out because they were informers. Fingers suggest theft to me: it’s even more precise and so more contemptuous than cutting off the hands.”

  “And harder work,” I said.

  “Yes, they must have been very keen on the precision of their symbolism.” He could have been commenting on a verse from a Scottish ballad. I remembered the clump of stubbed-out cigarettelike objects to the side of the corpse and repressed what would have been a squirm rather than a mere shiver of revulsion.