Days Without Number

by Robert Goddard

  ‘I believe our fathers met in Cyprus during the War.’

  ‘It is possible, though Papa never mentioned it. He moved there in the Thirties, when the Fascists started to make life difficult for him here. He was no friend of Mussolini. I was born in Cyprus. We returned here when I was a child, after the death of the man Papa had let it to.’

  ‘Did your father say much about his wartime experiences?’

  ‘No. I had the impression there was little to say. There was no fighting on Cyprus. As an Italian citizen living in a British colony, he must have been lucky to escape internment. If he was related to a British officer based there, it may have helped. But he never spoke of it to me. Ah—’ Demetrius nodded at the hard-hatted, middle-aged workman climbing the stairs towards them.‘We have news, I think.’

  Demetrius had explained earlier that no-one had yet mentioned Basil’s visit to him. Work had been in progress over the weekend and it was not clear who Basil might have spoken to. The foreman had been instructed to look into the matter while Demetrius showed Nick round. The foreman’s investigation now appeared to be complete.

  There was a conversation in rapid-fire Italian, during which the foreman did a good deal of shrugging. Then he retreated, leaving Nick to a few more moments of suspense. It was evident that Demetrius did not propose to explain until they were alone again. This seemed odd, since the foreman presumably spoke no English. But such a minor oddity made no impact on Nick. He was assailed by many greater mysteries.

  ‘Someone did call here on Saturday afternoon,’ said Demetrius once the foreman had vanished from sight.‘He spoke to Bruno Stammati, my business partner. I did not know Bruno had come here, but this stuff your brother was told about me avoiding the Carnival makes sense now. Bruno is fond of jokes. Some of them are funny, some not. Anyhow, we will call Bruno and sort it out.’ Demetrius plucked a spectacularly slim and elegant mobile from his pocket and pressed a single digit. A few seconds later, he frowned and spoke briefly in a message-leaving monotone, then rang off and grimaced apologetically.‘It seems Bruno is taking his weekend today. Tipico. No matter. I will catch him later. Whether that will help you find out where your brother is now’—he shrugged, tilting the epaulettes of his raincoat at 45 degrees—‘I cannot say.’

  ‘I’m really worried about him,’ said Nick.‘Anything you can do—’

  ‘Of course, of course. It is much easier for me to make enquiries than for you. I know Venice. Who to ask. How to ask. So, why not leave it with me? Give me twenty-four hours. If there is information, I will get it.’

  ‘That’s very kind. I—’

  ‘Not at all. We are Paleologoi. It is my duty to help.’ Demetrius smiled.‘And my pleasure.’

  Nick left the Palazzo Falcetto in a state of shock. A wholly unconsidered possibility was now revealed as the truth. And the truth mocked all that had gone before. Michael Paleologus had bequeathed Trennor to a dead man. His late and hastily drawn will would presumably have counted for nothing. If so, it had been as self-defeating as its destruction. But it had not been the only thing destroyed. Andrew and Tom and maybe Basil too had been dragged down in the wake of that single collusive act.

  A chilling suspicion began to form in Nick’s mind as he wandered aimlessly through the fading afternoon. Could his father have deliberately drawn up an invalid will? Had it been a last, sick joke at his family’s expense—an elaborate dare designed to test how far they would go to counter a threat that did not really exist? It could not be so, Nick told himself. The old man had acted in haste, without pausing to confirm that his cousin was still alive. That was surely the truth. That had to be the truth.

  Even if it was, it did not help Nick find Basil. Demetrius’s enquiries were likely to be more fruitful than his own. But the idea of doing nothing for twenty-four hours was quite simply appalling. He could not just sit on his hands. Night was falling by the time he arrived, somewhat to his surprise and by an unretraceable route, at the Rialto. He had Demetrius’s business card and a Telecom Italia phone card in his wallet, representing between them about the only practical steps he had so far succeeded in taking. He joined the commuter crowds aboard a northbound vaporetto, got off at the next stop and picked as direct a path as he could through the calles of Cannaregio to the Zampogna. It was a destination of sorts and, though that was about all that could be said for it, it was, in the circumstances, quite a lot. There existed, after all, the faint possibility that Basil had returned to the hotel in Nick’s absence.

  But Basil had not returned. There was nothing waiting for Nick at the Zampogna.

  He sat in his room for twenty minutes that seemed like more than an hour, until it was close enough to opening time at the Old Ferry for him to be sure of speaking to Irene when he phoned. He could not have borne screwing up his nerves for an abortive attempt. He still did not know what he was going to say to her. But he knew he had to say something.

  He headed out to make the call. He had spotted a card phone in Strada Nova, just after getting off the vaporetto, and planned to use that if he did not come across another on the way. But first he needed some Dutch courage.

  ‘Signor Paleologus,’ Luigi grinningly greeted him as he stepped into the bar.‘You must have known.’

  ‘Known what?’

  ‘I have a package for you.’ From beneath the counter Luigi flourished a large, bulkily filled envelope, on which NICHOLAS PALEOLOGUS was written in felt-tip capitals.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I don’t know. It came this afternoon. I was taking a piss, while there was no-one in. When I came back, it was here.’ Luigi tapped the counter for emphasis.‘Right here.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘It’s what happened.’

  Nick picked the package up, frowning in bemusement. Quite apart from what the envelope contained, the mystery of its arrival troubled him. How could anyone be sure he would ever receive it? It would have been safer to drop it off at the Zampogna. Or would it? He looked quizzically at Luigi.‘No-one knows I’m here.’

  ‘Someone does. You want a drink? Something that kicks like a goalkeeper, maybe?’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘I didn’t say good. Only the kick I promise.’ He poured some clear liquid from a dusty bottle into a small tumbler.‘Are you going to open that package or try to X-ray it?’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Nick ripped up the flap of the envelope and peered inside.‘It’s a book,’ he announced.

  ‘I like a good book. Mickey Spillane. That kind of thing.’

  Nick slid the book out on to the counter and flinched with surprise. It was a dog-eared copy of Drysdale’s biography of Richard of Cornwall: The Left Hand of the King.

  ‘Not Mickey Spillane,’ said Luigi.

  ‘Definitely not.’ Nick took a sip of the goalkeeper fluid and flinched again. The kick was a punt deep into the other half. Then he picked up the book and opened it. As he did so, he noticed that something was marking a place about a third of the way through. He turned to the page and focused at once on the name Paleologus, adrift in one of the paragraphs.

  Then his focus shifted to the place-marker itself. It was a business card. Valeria Nardini, Carte Antiche.

  Nick was unsure whether Luigi had been able to read the card or not. He suspected, despite slamming the book shut the moment he himself saw the name and the disadvantage of his having to decipher the words upside down, that the barista had probably managed to. But it could not be helped. Whoever Nick needed to protect himself against, it was not Luigi.

  Nick retreated to the bleak privacy of his room at the Zampogna and reopened the book at the marked page. He stared at Nardini’s card, certain that a message was being conveyed to him. But he did not even know which was the message: the card or the page.

  His eye fell on the place where he had seen the name Paleologus. He began to read.

  … Richard’s meeting with Andronicus Paleologus at the citadel of Limassol on Cyprus in March 1241 was a mo
re extraordinary event than has ever since been acknowledged. Relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Crusader states had never been warm and, since the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusaders in 1204 and the subsequent seizure of significant portions of Byzantine territory by their Venetian allies, they had been positively hostile. Yet at Limassol Richard, temporary viceroy of Outremer, sat down to negotiate with Emperor John Vatatzes’ megas domestikos.

  Andronicus Paleologus was John’s most trusted adviser and, for the purposes of this occasion, his plenipotentiary.

  The most difficult question to answer is what they were negotiating. The Latin Empire established in the Balkans by the Crusaders in 1204 by now amounted to little more than Constantinople itself. It has been suggested that John Vatatzes sought from Richard—and was given—a free hand so far as his ambitions to reclaim the city were concerned. Those ambitions were not ultimately fulfilled until after John’s death. The Emperor who eventually reconquered Constantinople in 1261 was none other than Michael Paleologus, who had accompanied his father, Andronicus, to Cyprus twenty years earlier.

  The Crusader states were, in truth, ill-equipped to obstruct John Vatatzes’ progressive moves against the Latin Empire. He hardly required their consent, tacit or otherwise, although he may have seen it as a useful guarantee of non-interference by their more powerful patrons in Western Europe. If so, it is strange that no record of such a policy has ever come to light. The negotiations in Limassol cannot, strictly speaking, even be proved to have taken place. We know the principals to have been present there at the same time. It would be absurd to suggest that this was for any other purpose than serious discussion. But those discussions were unusually and enduringly secretive. We can still only guess at their content today.

  One of the strangest consequences was the souring of several alliances which, at the time, must have seemed firmly founded. John Vatatzes was later to charge Michael Paleologus with conspiracy. Although Michael succeeded in evading the charge on a technicality, the episode has never been properly explained. As for Richard himself, his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who served as his deputy during his stay in the Holy Land and participated in the Limassol negotiations, was later to wage civil war in England against Richard and his brother, King Henry III.

  Mistrust and misfortune of several kinds devolved upon those who conferred in such unexampled secrecy at Limassol. For Richard, March 1241 was perhaps the apogee of his reputation and his achievements. When he left the Holy Land for good two months later, his vice-regal service had reached what seemed a triumphant conclusion. But the triumph did not last for long. The peace treaty he had negotiated with the Sultan of Egypt was to collapse within a year and the Templars and the Hospitallers were soon to be at one another’s throats.

  Of Richard’s activities on a wider diplomatic front during the remainder of 1241 we shall have much to say, but let us look ahead first to his return to England in January 1242, since we are told (Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora) that he was sorely downcast to learn upon his arrival at Dover that a vessel he had despatched ahead of him from Acre the previous spring had been lost in a storm off the Scillies, its journey tantalizingly close to completion. The vessel had been under the command of Ralph Valletort, Richard’s aide-de-camp in the Holy Land, who had, we can safely assume, been privy to the agreement reached at Limassol, though whether his ill-fated voyage was connected in any way with that agreement—whatever it may have been—can only be conjectured.

  This disappointment still lay in the future when Richard reached Sicily in June 1241 and was drawn at once into Emperor Frederick IPs attempts to—

  Nick stopped reading and tracked back a few lines to the mention of Ralph Valletort. It was as Emily had said. There was a connection. There was a meaning. And for a split second, like the fugitive memory of a dream, something some trace, some fragment—flitted across Nick’s mind. Then it was gone.

  His imagination was playing tricks on him, he reasoned. He had no insight into the truth. He had no means of decoding the secret. All he could hope to do was to halt the sequence of events his family had become caught up in. In looking for Basil, he was looking also for a way out, an escape route for those still able to take advantage of it.

  It was gone eight o’clock—seven o’clock in England. He had to phone Irene. He could delay no longer. He stowed Drysdale’s book in his bag in the wardrobe, then headed out.

  The night was cold, still and moonless, with a dank mist rising from the canals. Venice—the part of it Nick was in anyway was a dead city, a place of silence and shadow. He hurried along the deserted calles, pausing only to check his route on the map. A few more pedestrians appeared as he neared Strada Nova. After no more than a couple of wrong turnings, he reached the campo with the row of payphones he had passed earlier.

  As he approached, card in hand, one of the phones began to ring. He stopped and stared at it, the noise magnified by the enclosing walls of the buildings around the campo. A couple walked by, glancing curiously first at the phone, then at him. The ringing went on.

  Nick stepped forward and picked up the phone.‘Yes?’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Walk east along Strada Nova,’ responded a voice he did not recognize.‘Turn right into Calle Palmarana. Follow it to the canal. There’ll be a water taxi waiting for you.’

  ‘Hold on. Who—’

  ‘You’ve got five minutes.’

  The line went suddenly dead. Nick stared around him into the jumbled shadows of the campo. Nothing moved. A minute slowly passed as fear and curiosity wrestled within him. Then he put the phone back in its cradle and started walking—east along Strada Nova.

  The water taxi was where Nick had been told it would be, moored at the end of the calle, its engine idling. The pilot looked up as Nick approached and pitched the remains of a cigarette into the Grand Canal.

  ‘Signer Paleologus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘ Prego.’ The man offered Nick a hand. For a moment, Nick hesitated. Was this really a good idea? No, the cautious part of his brain insisted. But what other idea did he have? He hopped aboard and stepped down into the cabin.

  The pilot slipped the mooring and started away, back up the Grand Canal in the direction Nick had come from. A few minutes took them to the Canal d’Oro vaporetto stop, where Nick had got off earlier. There was no vaporetto at the pontoon, but a figure stepped forward expectantly as they approached. The taxi slowed and manoeuvred alongside just long enough for him to jump aboard. They were actually closer now to the rank of payphones Nick had left a short while ago than they had been at the point where he had boarded the taxi. If the person who had spoken to him on the payphone had been nearby, watching him, he could have made his way to the vaporetto stop in ample time—and could now be stepping down into the cabin to join him.

  ‘Hi,’ the newcomer said, closing the cabin doors behind him as the taxi accelerated away and dropping a bulging carpetbag on to the floor. He was a short, corpulent figure dressed in a thin raincoat and baggy linen suit, with what looked like a cricket sweater beneath. His unshaven chin merged with a roll of fat around his neck, straining the frayed collar of his shirt. His hair, damp with rain or sweat or both, was plastered to his head. His eyes were sea-grey and skittering, his moist lips parted in a smile that revealed an orthodontic disaster area.‘Nick Paleologus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Fergy Balaskas.’ He lowered himself awkwardly on to the cream leather bench opposite and held out a large, wavering hand that Nick somewhat reluctantly shook.

  ‘Where are we going, Mr Balaskas?’

  The airport. Well, I’m going to the airport. You’re just along for the ride. You’re coming straight back in this, as a matter of fact. The round trip will cost you four hundred thousand lire, but what the hell? I’m not jetting off anywhere, by the way. It’s just that from the airport I can take my pick of onward transport. Bus, taxi, motoscafo: enough options to keep you guessing. You and
anyone else who might be interested.’

  ‘Why should I care where you’re going on to?’

  ‘No reason. But what you don’t know you can’t tell. You’re a dog with fleas, Nick. I don’t want to catch any.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Precautions, old boy. You should try them yourself.’

  ‘Was that pantomime with the telephone one of those precautions?’

  ‘It was. Thanks to which, we’re having this chinwag out of sight and sound. I gather you got the book, incidentally. Real page-turner, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  For answer, Balaskas pulled a business card from his pocket and passed it over. Nick held it up to read by the light of the cabin-lamp. F. C. Balaskas, Private Enquiries and Debt Recovery, 217a Leoforos Archiepiskopou Leontiou, Limassol, Cyprus.

  ‘You’re the man Jonathan Braybourne hired to investigate Demetrius Paleologus?’

  ‘I am indeed.’

  ‘You don’t sound like a Cypriot.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not one. My father was, through and through. But he emigrated to England straight after the War and married a Londoner. I went out to Cyprus during a career slump about twenty years ago to see the relatives and soak up some sun, but I spotted an opening for confidential services to the ex-pat community and stayed on. They’ve been generating more than enough debt and divorce work for me ever since. I wish I’d stuck to it and told Braybourne to stuff his conspiracy theories, but nobody needs glasses in the hindsight game, do they? I bet you’ve been looking back and trying to work out where exactly you took the wrong turning yourself.’

  ‘Did you leave the parcel for me at Luigi’s bar?’

  ‘Yep. He tipped me the wink you’d shown up and I dropped the book off so we’d have what you could call a frame of reference for our conversazione. You’re here to find your brother? Well, maybe I can point you in the right direction. I met him a few days ago. Funny sort of a fellow. I showed him the book too. You can hang onto it, by the way. I shan’t be wanting it back.’