The Venice Conspiracy

by Sam Christer

  ‘What do you speak of, Netsvis?’ Pesna leans close to him. ‘I am not a man amused by riddles. If you have a divine message for me, then out with it.’

  Teucer replies tonelessly: ‘Before a mighty force threw me into the flames, the gods set my eyes on the temple. They told me they were angry you had stopped work on their home in order to increase output at your mines. They did this to me to punish your short-sightedness.’

  Pesna glances towards Kavie and reads the anxiety on his face. ‘Your insolence is only forgivable because of your illness. If this is an act of the gods then they are communicating their wishes through you, so tell me, what needs be done to please them?’

  Teucer manages a thin smile. ‘Their temple needs to be finished and due homage must be paid in the form of gifts and sacrifices. If you please the gods in these ways then they will reward me by returning my sight and will grant you the peace and prosperity you so urgently seek.’

  ‘And if they are not pleased?’ asks Kavie.

  Teucer cannot see the men, but senses their apprehension. ‘If the gods are displeased then they will leave me blind. And they will wreak most terrible vengeance on you and all you hold dear.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Present Day

  Venice

  Tom and Tina take dinner at the kind of restaurant only locals know about – the kind that even travel writers keep secret from their readers. Tina pauses until the waiter is out of earshot. ‘So’ – she fights back a cat-got-the-cream-smile – ‘I hope you don’t mind me talking about this, but was I really your first?’

  He looks up from his spaghetti vongolé and pretends not to understand, ‘My first what?’

  ‘You know …’ She slices steak piazzella, and whispers, a little louder than intended, ‘Your first full sexual communion?’

  Tom slugs a jolt of chilled white wine and shoots her a disapproving look. ‘Sex and communion are words that don’t really go together.’

  She arches an eyebrow, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I could see you in those long purple robes, nothing on beneath, me kneeling at your feet and—’

  ‘Don’t go there!’ He puts up a hand. ‘Don’t even think it. You’re a very sick girl.’

  ‘Mister, you can’t begin to imagine! I’m a journalist, I was born sick,’ she apologises with a soft smile. ‘And hey, you’ve still not answered my question.’

  Tom fiddles with his wine glass. ‘Yes.’ He looks up at her. ‘Yes, you were.’

  ‘Phew.’ She rewards him with an approving tilt of the head.

  ‘Is that a good phew, or a bad phew?’

  ‘It’s like a wow, phew.’

  ‘A “wow, phew”?’ He laughs. ‘I’ve never had a “wow, phew” before.’

  ‘I guess that’s because you’ve never had sex before.’

  ‘Point taken.’

  ‘So, describe it, then. What’s it like, first time?’

  Tom drops his cutlery in mock exasperation. ‘Oh, come on! Give the boy a break. You’ve had your own first time, you know what it’s like.’

  ‘A long time ago.’ She half laughs, picks up her wine glass, stem between middle fingers, a glisten of condensation outside a bowl of golden fluid. ‘Actually, now I remember, it was horrible. Hurt like fuck and I thought I’d never want to do it again.’

  Tom looks shocked.

  She pins her smile back on. ‘Not that bad for you, I hope.’

  ‘No. Not bad at all.’

  She feigns offence. ‘Charming. I’ve never had a “not bad” before.’

  He finally twigs. This is about emotion. Feelings. Communicating. Building a relationship. The spiritual side. The very thing he should be good at and is now blundering around at. ‘I’m sorry. I guess I’m spectacularly poor at this.’ He pauses and makes sure she’s looking at him, staring straight into his eyes, the proverbial windows of the soul. ‘Sleeping with you—’ he corrects himself: ‘Having sex with you – is something I’ll never, ever forget.’

  ‘Of course you won’t. No one does.’

  ‘No. Not because it was my first time, that wasn’t what I meant. I didn’t rush out of the church and think, whoopee, now I can have sex. It wasn’t like that.’

  She’s taken aback, reaches for a glass of water rather than her wine.

  ‘I’ll never forget it because I felt closer to you at that moment than I’ve ever felt to any human being. Never mind the rush, the adrenalin, the desire. There was all that. And more. And thank you, God, for the intensity of it all. But there was more.’

  Tina feels embarrassed. She’d raised the topic to be playful, to tease him, to spice up the dinner. Now she’s somewhere she hadn’t expected to be. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be crass, earlier.’

  Tom smiles; the inquisition is over. He picks up his glass again. ‘You weren’t.’ He takes a calmer sip this time. ‘Talking about it was good. The right thing to have done. So what now? What happens next?’

  Next? Tina had never thought about next. She disguises her shock by looking away. Now she reaches for the wine and she hopes there’s no panic on her face when she turns back to him. ‘Don’t expect too much, Tom. Please don’t. I have an awful habit of letting people down.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Isola Mario, Venice

  The historic mansion on the private island owned by reclusive millionaire Mario Fabianelli is in the news for all the wrong reasons.

  Formerly a respected seat of Venetian grandeur, it is now a hippy commune. Its manicured lawns are overgrown and neglected, and the only hint of affluence comes in the presence of the black-uniformed security guards who patrol the perimeters.

  The guards are in good spirits as they end their shift inside an ugly grey Portakabin surrounded by a crop of cypresses at the rear of the mansion.

  ‘Another day over – another cheque in the bank.’ Antonio Materazzi slumps against a door-jamb and lights a cigarette. The four guys in the locker room, including their supervisor, think he’s an out-of-work bouncer from Livorno. None of them have a clue his real name is Pavarotti or that he’s an undercover cop. Luca, the supervisor who gave him the job, is a big friendly guy who’s taken a liking to him – maybe even sees a bit of his old self in the well-muscled kid. ‘Antonio, come eat with us,’ he shouts as he struggles to tie his laces beneath the heavy sagging stomach that’s he’s keen to fill. ‘Spumoni makes the best tortellini in Venice, come with us.’

  Antonio blows out cigarette smoke and waves him gently away. ‘Another time. Thank you for asking me, but today I promised my new girlfriend—’

  Marco, the unit’s weasel-faced number two, wags a long finger and leers. ‘Haah! We know exactly what you promised your girlfriend!’ He slaps a tattooed hand on his bicep and snaps his arm upwards. ‘Why should you be eating pasta with old dogs like us, when you can be at home eating young pussy, hey?’

  ‘Enough, Marco! You’re a fucking pig.’ Luca glares at him, a supervisor’s stare of death. He turns towards Pavarotti and adopts a more fatherly look. ‘Another time, ’Tonio. Remember, you’re working mornings – twelve on, twelve off for the rest of the week, okay?’

  ‘Si. Va bene. I’ll remember.’ Antonio gives his boss the thumbs-up and focuses his attention on his cigarette until they all head off for the waiting water taxi.

  The commune is set in the middle of the island with four major landing stages for boats, the main one being close to the guard house. Water from the lagoon has been channelled in various tributaries around and through the island. Numerous bridges arch decorously over waterways that lead to footpaths and forests planted centuries ago.

  The undercover cop watches the water taxi head across the lagoon, flicks the dog-end of his cigarette into a metal bin and begins to amble around the mansion’s northern perimeter walls. If he’s right, Fernando, the exterior night guard is now exactly at the opposite end of the island. He’s got a good half-hour to do his snooping before they’re likely to bump into each other.

  Antonio’s alrea
dy noted that the walls are covered with anti-vandal night cameras and anti-glare high-def day cameras. An introductory shift designed to teach him how to monitor the feeds and archive video from the hard drives was enough for him to spot several weak areas. Nothing wrong with the system, nothing at all. The German-made Mobotix IP high-res set-up is one of the best in the world. But the flaw Antonio has found is a human one. It hadn’t been fitted by Mobotix, it’d been installed by Mario’s own team and they hadn’t quite got all their angles right. Forty overlapping camera views cover four long walls and any nearby internal and external activity. But the video sweep on the south wall, the one opposite the guard’s complex, seems to his expert eye to have been poorly rigged. It lazily misses a whole section of the mansion’s grounds. Well, to be precise, it’s not so much the grounds it misses as the waterway access and the building that lies behind it – the area they’ve been told is strictly out of bounds – the boathouse.

  Antonio sticks close to the wall. As close as the climbing ivy that’s bound its pink tendrils into the whitewashed mortar. The boathouse is top of his list of places to check out. If drugs are being run in and out of the island, then this place is going to be the centre of activity.

  By the time he reaches the slipway he realises prowling around isn’t going to be as easy as he thought. He glances up at the walls. The night cameras are out of view. Good. If he can’t see them, they can’t see him.

  But that’s not the problem. Running out from the wall – outwards and upwards – is a vast wire-mesh fence, topped and edged with razor wire.

  He weighs it up. Even if he could climb it and swing his family jewels over those slice-happy jaws of sharpened steel, then he still has to drop at least twelve feet on the other side into the water. Dangerous. At least break-your-ankle dangerous. Maybe worse.

  Going round doesn’t look an easier option. To do that, he’d have to walk maybe a mile to the edge of the island, then dive into the lagoon and swim underwater and unseen up the slipway. In a wetsuit and properly prepared he’d happily give it a go. But not fully dressed, not unprepared, and not right now with one of his security-guard colleagues about to arrive on his tail.

  Antonio moves his attention to the large wooden doors of the boathouse.

  They’re going to be locked as well.

  Even if he manages to get to them, those big old wooden slabs are going to give him problems. They’re padlocked from the outside and possibly even bolted on the inside. Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.

  He turns and starts the walk back in the gathering dusk. He can just make out Fernando in the distance, a distinctive bow-legged walk, his pace slow and casual. In another hour the last dregs of daylight will have drained away and he’ll be making the last of his rounds with a flashlight.

  Way beyond the vicious razor wire and high above the weathered old doors a rusty weathervane gently spins, kicked into life by a gathering westerly wind. A closer look – perhaps through binoculars – would have revealed that the iron head of the cockerel was a twenty-four-hour camera with night-vision lens, routed not to the Mobotix control room but to a smaller and more private panel of monitors and recorders at the back of the boathouse. A panel now controlled by the man who killed Monica Vidic.

  CAPITOLO XVII

  666 BC

  The Plains of Atmanta

  Kavie and Pesna are in a foul mood as they leave Teucer’s bedside and board their waiting chariot. Larth notices their sullen demeanour as he climbs up front with the driver and whips four of Etruria’s finest stallions across the hardened turf.

  The chariot is new but the magistrate hasn’t even passed comment on it. Larth personally designed and supervised its construction. Twin axles, four nine-spoke reinforced wheels and bronzed shielding to all sides. It is the finest in Etruria. Better than anything his father ever made. Better than anything his father’s father even dreamed of making.

  He glances over his shoulder and sees them deep in one of their many confidential conversations. The kind that excludes him. Belittles him.

  They take him for granted. Treat him merely as a purveyor of pain. Well, he’s worth more than that. More than they credit him for. More than either of them will ever be.

  Fields of barley and wheat fly by on either side of the chariot as Larth languishes in his loathing and resentment.

  Everything the naked eye can see now belongs to Pesna.

  Beneath the soil lie the rich reserves of silver that Pesna is mining and turning into precious jewellery.

  The chariot halts and the driver, grumbling, dismounts and walks ahead to unbuckle a field gate.

  Larth strains to listen to the conversation of the men behind him.

  Kavie sounds upbeat: ‘It is a blessing in disguise.’

  Pesna is sceptical: ‘How so?’

  ‘Our invitation to the noblemen, magistrates and elders can now include an invitation to the blessing of our new temple. How could they refuse to come and be part of something sacred?’

  Pesna doesn’t sound convinced. ‘A blessing by a blinded netsvis? How will that look?’

  ‘He may not be blind.’

  ‘But what if he is?’

  There is a pause. Larth can almost hear the wheels of Kavie’s devious mind turning before finally – as always – he finds the right reply: ‘Then he is a novelty. We invent a legend that Teucer selflessly sacrificed his sight so he would not be distracted by earthly things and could better listen to the words of the gods. Having such a devoted netsvis will make you the envy of all Etruria.’

  Pesna laughs. ‘Sometimes, my friend, I doubt whether even the gods themselves are as blessed with words as you are.’

  Kavie the sycophant laughs as well. ‘You are too gracious.’

  ‘Have you not already sent the invitations?’

  ‘Drafted, yes. Sent, no. I can make amendments later this evening and despatch them by messengers on the morrow.’

  ‘Good. So when? When do we invite these powerful and influential men to our modest meeting and divine temple blessing?’

  Kavie holds up both hands and stretches out his fingers. ‘Six days’ time.’

  The conversation falls off as the chariot driver returns. He mumbles something, climbs back on his seat and shakes the stallions’ reins. Larth ignores him and sits up straight.

  Six days. Excellent. Six is his favourite number.

  CHAPTER 22

  Present Day

  Isola Mario, Venice

  The killer of Monica Vidic continues to watch the monitors long after Antonio is out of view. He pans the surveillance cameras left and right, then tilts and zooms in and out.

  There’s no further trace of the snooper.

  It isn’t that unusual for one of the security team to wander off their perimeter and stray into the boathouse’s fifty-yard no-go zone. But this is different. The young guard hasn’t appeared out of idle curiosity. No, not at all. He has something else focused on his mind.

  Intrusion.

  He’s clearly come with the notion of breaking in.

  The killer replays the tapes and smiles. Yes, indeed. The foolish boy had certainly been thinking of climbing the fence – he’d like to have seen him try – and perhaps even contemplated swimming his way to the boathouse door.

  Now why would a guard do that?

  And more importantly, what should be done with a guard who would want to do that?

  The killer had made plans for the night. Big plans. But now they’re going to have to be postponed.

  On another bank of monitors – ones slaved to the security master system – he watches Antonio and Fernando say goodnight to each other, punch knuckles and go their different ways. How nice to see colleagues getting on. He switches to another covert video feed, provided by cameras hidden inside the ugly white wall domes that most people mistakenly believe are just lights. The night watchman returns to the changing hut and hunts in his locker for the stale panini and soggy torte his wife had packed for him half a day ago. The
snooper dawdles down to the decked pontoon and un-ropes an old motor boat.

  A very old boat, by the look of it. The killer can see its registration numbers on the side and quickly writes them down. Its name, Spirito di Vita – Spirit of Life – has been removed, but the letters have been there for so long they’ve left legible outlines on the craft.

  On a laptop on a steel table beside the security system, he opens a file marked Personnel. A few clicks later he’s reading all about Antonio Materazzi – no doubt a false name – and where he’s supposed to live and his employment history.

  The references and background checks look good. But he still has a bad feeling about the young guard. A very bad feeling.

  Within the hour his suspicions are confirmed. The boat’s number and the name Spirito di Vita don’t tally. The registration tracks back to someone called Materazzi, but the Spirito has a very different history and entirely different numbers. It started life as a plaything for a businessman called Francesco di Esposito from Naples. It was then bought by a former hospital worker called Angelo Pavarotti and now apparently belongs to his son, Antonio. Antonio Materazzi is almost certainly Antonio Pavarotti. Most likely an undercover cop – a special unit of the Polizia or Carabinieri. Operatives often keep their real first names in case some local calls to them in the street; that way they can pass off the recognition without arousing suspicion.

  Monica’s killer shuts down the laptop and returns to the safety of the commune. A smile comes to his face. How ironic that Antonio’s father, Angelo – a name meaning messenger of God – should be the one to provide him with the information on how to kill his son.

  CAPITOLO XVIII

  666 BC

  Teucer and Tetia’s Hut, Atmanta

  Sunrise over the Adriatic. A sky of strawberry and vanilla reflects in the rolling mirrored ocean. A soft breeze catches Tetia and blows back her long black hair.