The Lizard's Bite nc-4

by David Hewson

  “I don’t want to be in here,” she muttered, brushing past him to go out into the light, airy living room, striding to the balcony, bright in the lagoon sun, craving fresh air. The smell of paint and fresh plaster rose up from below. The main doors were open. The temporary stands, with some real pieces from Massiter’s collection, would now be in place. Soon the musicians would arrive, looking for their podium, which was still probably in pieces. At seven there would be guests. The palazzo would be ready for them by then. Even so, she didn’t want to see it.

  Emily took a deep breath, aware of his presence behind her. “I can only apologise. I don’t know what came over me.”

  And all for Nic’s boss, she thought. Which was as good as saying for Nic himself, given how close the three men were these days.

  “Well, it’s out now. A burden shared, they say. I don’t . . .” He was trying to convince himself of the right words. “I don’t miss her anymore. It wasn’t a rational relationship. She was different. Not just beautiful, but perfectly untouched by the world somehow, in a way I never saw in anyone else. Which is why Daniel fooled her so easily, I imagine. I just wanted to know she was safe. That’s all. I didn’t—I don’t—harbour any illusions about rekindling old fires.”

  “Do you think she was guilty?” Emily asked him. “In the deaths of these people?”

  “No,” he replied, as if the question were irrelevant now. “Not for a minute. But she went with Daniel and that’s what counts, in most people’s eyes anyway. It’s not what you do, it’s appearances. That’s all it was with me. If I’d stayed here and fought instead of running away . . .”

  “You could have lost everything.”

  Massiter laughed. “But I did, in a way! Don’t you see? Oh, enough of this. I hate sounding maudlin. How are the builders doing? You look as if you got stuck in paint yourself.”

  Emily crossed her arms over her paint-spattered overalls. “I think the place will look fine for tonight. But you should find yourself a good architect, Hugo. I’m not sure the structure here is as sound as you think. This is not a conventional building. There’s more wood than I expected. Some of the ironwork . . .”

  Some of the ironwork was virtually rust. In most cities she doubted the palazzo would be approved for public use at all. But Massiter had sway with the authorities. Without it he wouldn’t have got as far as he had. He was a survivor, in spite of the odds.

  “I can believe that,” he said, with a grimace. “Hang on: I thought I’d found myself an architect.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Emily . . .”

  It was so sudden she couldn’t move on the narrow balcony high above the island’s cobblestones. Hugo was holding her forearms, his fingers lightly touching skin, warm, affectionate.

  “Please don’t go,” he whispered. “I know I’m only an old fool but I’d rather you stayed around a little longer. Work here, as much as you like. None of that . . .”—he glanced at the storeroom door—“ . . . means anything. It’s history, and history really is bunk.”

  “Perhaps you could find her. I could help. I have friends.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he said, smiling. “But it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I don’t want Laura found. Wherever she is . . . whatever’s happened, it’s water under the bridge. It’s time I started living my own life again.”

  His head came forward. She flinched instinctively, wondering, all the same, what she would do if he attempted to kiss her.

  Instead Hugo Massiter was reaching over her shoulder, peering down towards the lively grey water, past San Michele, on to the busy vaporetto stops at Fondamente Nuove, on Venice proper. A couple of racing skiffs were pulling across the lagoon, two lines of hooped backs in each straining for the lead. Approaching them were three large open boats making a steady progress towards the island, each carrying a cargo of figures clad in black and white.

  “I see the musicians,” he said. “They’re early. Do you like music?”

  “Some.”

  “Good. You must never trust a person with no fondness for music, you know. It demonstrates a serious detachment from life. That young man of yours. Does he . . . ?”

  In one brief instant, chastely, with the swift, easy grace of a relative, he brushed his lips against her cheek, was done, turning back to the apartment, beginning to whistle, something classical.

  “Vivaldi,” she said.

  He stopped, looked back at her, smiling, an expression of bliss.

  “Perfect,” Hugo Massiter declared. “You are, I swear, perfect. Apart from that outfit.”

  The overalls were a mess. She wondered when Nic would arrive with fresh clothes.

  “Never mind,” the Englishman said. “I have an idea.”

  THE BRACCIS LIVED IN A RED-BRICK TERRACED HOVEL just a couple of hundred metres from their shabby little factory. The sunless street stank of cats, stale rubbish and gas from the nearby workshops. There was a small, restless crowd outside when the three cops arrived. The two carpenters were among them, sinister smirks on their faces. The bad-tempered, on-the-edge mood of the mob reminded Costa of his early days in the force when luck would occasionally push him into the uniformed squad working Roma-Lazio matches.

  “You going to arrest him?” someone yelled as Costa led the way towards the door.

  Peroni stopped and gave them the look. It got quiet for a moment.

  “Why would we want to do that?” the big cop demanded.

  “For messing around with his sister,” the heckler replied. “And the rest.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peroni barked back at him. “Why don’t you all just go home and let us do our jobs?”

  The older carpenter butted in. “If you’d been doing your jobs, none of this would’ve happened. We don’t like dirty bastards like Bracci around here. You take the sonofabitch away with you. Otherwise we deal with this ourselves.”

  Falcone was on him in an instant. “If anyone so much as sets a foot inside this house, he will, I assure you, wake up in jail. Understand?”

  “Call in uniform,” the inspector snarled at Costa. “I want a guard on this place, and anyone who so much as squeaks thrown in a cell for the night.”

  Costa smiled at the carpenter, who was getting the full dressing-down treatment from Falcone, something no one in earshot was likely to forget. Then he walked away from the melee to get a little privacy. The duty man in Castello sounded sleepy, amazed by the request for assistance.

  “You want what?” the bored voice on the other end of the phone line demanded.

  “Uniform. All night if need be.”

  “Would that be ten? Twenty? Any particular size or colour?”

  “Just get some men here,” Costa retorted. “We don’t want a riot on our hands.”

  “This is Venice, friend. We don’t have riots. What have you people been doing?”

  Asking the right questions, Costa thought. Which was, perhaps, not a Venetian tradition.

  “Three men minimum,” he snapped. “Now. If this goes wrong, it’s on your head.”

  Then he walked to the door and kept his finger on the bell until a surly Enzo Bracci appeared, in jeans and a tight grubby tee-shirt. The young man was smoking a joint, eyes glazed, a familiar smell hanging round him. He looked ready for a fight.

  “Get out of here,” Enzo muttered. “You’ve done enough already, haven’t you?”

  Costa nodded back at the angry crowd. “You want us to leave you with this?”

  Enzo spat on the ground, not far short of Costa’s feet, and glared at the approaching hulk of Gianni Peroni, followed by Falcone.

  “Without you we wouldn’t have had this. Is that what cops are for these days? Spreading shit?”

  “We didn’t mean for that to happen, Enzo,” Peroni said apologetically. “And I’d advise you to put that thing you’re smoking out of our sight too. Don’t tempt me. We have to talk. Inspector Falcone here says so and you wouldn’t want to go saying no to
him, now, would you?”

  He eyed Falcone up and down, flicked the smoke into the gutter with one bent finger, then opened the door mouthing a torrent of low curses.

  ALDO BRACCI WAS in the tiny, airless front room, a dark place, illuminated by just a single lamp. He clutched a grappa bottle, swaying back and forth on a cheap wicker chair. Fredo was with him. The younger son’s eyes were full of anger and grief.

  Falcone held out his hand. “My name’s Inspector Falcone. We need to talk.”

  “Really,” Bracci mumbled, his voice thick and slurry.

  Peroni pulled up three chairs. The cops sat down next to Bracci. Then Peroni gingerly removed the bottle from his hands.

  “Not a good idea, Aldo. A man needs a clear head at times like these.”

  “Jesus,” Enzo Bracci swore, shaking his head from side to side. “How could you do this to him?”

  “We didn’t,” Costa said. “It happened. We’ve got some men coming to deal with those jerks outside.”

  “I can deal with them!” Enzo yelled. “It’s why they’re here that pisses me off. We told you. Papa was with us all the time. We worked all through the night. You’ve got no right, no business, spreading all this crap around.”

  “I can talk for myself,” Aldo muttered. “Don’t treat me like I’m a cripple.”

  Falcone picked up the bottle and looked at it. “Cheap stuff,” he observed.

  “We’re cheap people,” Aldo replied. “Didn’t you work that out already?”

  “So was it good?” Falcone continued, as if the man hadn’t spoken. “Having Bella marry into a family like the Arcangeli? A different class.”

  “Hey!” Enzo bellowed. “They’re no different from us. We just don’t bother hiding the fact.”

  “Shut up!” the father screamed. His eyes were watery with drink. He hadn’t shaved in a while. “They’re here to talk to me. And that’s what they’ll do.”

  “So how did you feel about it, Aldo?” Peroni asked. “Good? Bad? Indifferent?”

  “I didn’t feel anything! Bella was . . . hungry for a husband. She wanted someone she could control. Always the boss, that woman.”

  His dead, drunk face turned on them suddenly. “Always. Not that anyone believed you, once she turned on the charm.”

  “You’re saying she started what went on?” Falcone asked. “You being what, four, five years older?”

  Aldo’s expression was unreadable under the dim lights. “I’m saying nothing about that. Not a damn thing.”

  “When did it end?” Costa asked.

  “Maybe it never started.”

  Peroni sighed, slapping his big hands on his knees. “Aldo, we’re trying to help you here. That’s really difficult if you’re just going to feed us bullshit. We’ve seen the reports. We know something was going on.”

  “All you know is the crap morons like that . . .” he nodded towards the front door, and the crowd outside, “ . . . spread around ’cause they’ve got nothing better to do with their lives.”

  Costa wondered about this sad, embittered man. No money. No wife. No social life. The Braccis were outcasts in their own community. Just like the Arcangeli. Why? Because they were judged to be scum. Almost thirty years before, Aldo and Bella had proved it, by crossing the forbidden line.

  “Was it her idea to let everyone know?” Costa asked. “We don’t want the details. We just need to try to understand.”

  Aldo stifled a sour laugh. He grabbed the bottle back from Falcone and took a long swig.

  “Bella was Bella,” he muttered. “She did what the hell she liked. She just loved being looked at. By anybody. Me? I was just one more fool on the list. It could have been anyone. She was . . .” He screwed his eyes shut, trying to force out the words. “ . . . older than the rest of us. Right from the start. I know that sounds like the self-serving crap you’d get from most men, but it’s true. I was just a dumb, teenage kid. Never was very good with girls. It was a game. We didn’t do it more than three times. That wasn’t the point. She wanted the excitement. The attention. It gave her a kick, having other people stare at us—”

  “Dad,” Enzo interrupted, a bleak expression of shock on his face. This wasn’t a conversation the Braccis had had before. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “No?” Aldo stared at his sons. He looked almost relieved to get it off his chest finally. “Listen to me. You’re going to hear all about it anyway. Best you get the right version. My version. Bella was crazy. You never saw that because by the time you’d come along she was smart enough to hide it. But she had this ability to make you crazy too, to lock you in that little world of hers so tight you thought that was the place that was real. Not what was out there, past the door. All the day-to-day shit. Chasing work. Trying to stay alive.”

  “When did it end?” Costa asked.

  “Years ago,” Aldo whispered. “It ended when the police came round and told my old man it wasn’t a joke, a piece of stupid local gossip. She’d been careful to keep him in the dark. If anyone said something, Bella just called them a liar, a mischief-maker. It couldn’t last forever. When the cops arrived, she turned innocent. Blamed everything on me. Which was true maybe. In a way. I dunno. Not anymore. I don’t know a damn thing. Just that my old man took me out there . . .” He nodded at the back door. Through the grimy window lay a small terraced yard, full of old junk. “ . . . and spent an hour or so beating me senseless.”

  The two sons were seated by now, glassy-eyed, distraught. How many times had Aldo beaten them, Costa wondered? How often did the same old routine get passed down from generation to generation in places like this without anyone ever questioning it?

  “When she died she was pregnant,” Falcone observed, getting straight to the point. “Any idea who the father might be?”

  Bracci looked genuinely surprised. “Are you sure?”

  “We’ve got the medical reports,” Falcone insisted. “Six weeks pregnant. Was it you?”

  “No!” Bracci seemed astonished, offended too. “I told you. Bella and I stopped that years ago. It only happened a couple of times, anyway.”

  “Then who?” Costa asked.

  “How about her husband?” the man spat back.

  Falcone shook his head. “Physically impossible. We have medical records. Uriel couldn’t father children.”

  “Then I swear to God I don’t know.”

  “But you knew she had affairs?” the inspector continued, pushing all the time.

  “I guessed,” he replied with a shrug. “Bella liked men. She always did. Uriel was an OK guy. For an Arcangelo. But he wasn’t . . .”

  Aldo made a gesture, a down-turned finger, unmistakable. “At least,” he added, “that’s what she said.” He glowered at the grubby carpet. “Makes you wonder what she said about me.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t tell you about the pregnancy?” Costa asked.

  Aldo laughed. A short, dry sound. “Are you kidding? Bella didn’t say a word. If it couldn’t have been Uriel . . .” He shrugged again. “What would you expect? Guess she was planning to get rid of it.”

  Just like that, Costa thought. Bella was a Bracci. And an Arcangelo too. Both equally practical. Deal with the child. Deal with the husband.

  “It would really help,” Costa continued, “if someone else could corroborate where you were during Wednesday morning. Families—”

  “How many goddamn times do we have to tell you?” It was Enzo, furious again. “Papa was with us. All the time. Go find someone with a reason to do this.”

  That was, Costa thought, an excellent suggestion, and was about to say as much when there was a resounding, violent crash from the front of the house. All six men recoiled in sudden shock. Following behind the brick that had shattered the window came a bottle, a wad of burning fabric stuttering flames at its neck.

  “It’s dealt with,” Peroni said instantly, and was on his feet in a flash, snatching out the crude fuse with his hands, uttering a quick curse, then extinguishing t
he rag with his big feet.

  “Nice neighbours you’ve got,” he noted quietly, picking up the bottle by the neck, setting it upright on the table. “We’re supposed to have some people here to make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

  Costa walked to the door and opened it. The crowd looked bigger now. All men, all laughing, joking, looking as if they’d like to run up a little lynching party later on, when some more drink had been taken.

  Three uniformed cops stood in front of them, arms crossed, bored, unmoved.

  Incandescent, Costa walked down and confronted the biggest, a man he recognised from the Questura in Castello.

  “You’re here to stop that! Do your damn job.”

  “Just came out of nowhere,” the cop mumbled, with half a smile on his face.

  “Don’t let it happen again.”

  “Sure,” the uniform said, let loose a stupid, sarcastic smile, then wagged a finger at the mob. “You hear that! The Romans got orders for you. No more throwing bottles at the pervert. OK?”

  They stood there, sniggering.

  “Not while I’m looking,” the cop added.

  Nic Costa muttered a few choice insults under his breath, then returned to the house. Aldo Bracci was back at the booze again, just as miserable, a little scared now too.

  “Do you have some relatives?” Costa asked him. “Maybe this would be a good time to get out of town. Just make sure we know where to contact you.”

  “This is my fucking house!” Bracci screeched. “You think I’m leaving? After all these years? Just because of those morons out there?”

  Costa glanced at Falcone. “We could take him into custody. I don’t like the look of this place.”

  “No,” Falcone replied. “Not if he doesn’t want it. If you change your mind, Bracci . . .”

  The inspector hauled himself to his feet, then marched outside and gave the three uniforms the A-grade Falcone bawl-out Costa and Peroni knew only too well.

  “They won’t bother you, Aldo,” Peroni said, once the volume beyond the door had died down a little. “Not after that.”

  Costa looked at the dejected, drunken shambles of a figure in front of them, shame and self-loathing written clearly on his sagging face. The mob outside was the least of Aldo Bracci’s problems.