Isle of the Dead

by Alex Connor

  ‘So this is a portrait of a serial killer?’

  ‘Yes. The first of its kind,’ Gaspare agreed. ‘Soon after it was completed, it disappeared. Some people presumed it had been hidden. But no one knew where—’

  ‘Why wasn’t it destroyed?’ Seraphina interrupted. ‘Surely someone should have burnt it?’

  ‘I’ve told you – it’s a masterpiece. The likeness of a monster, immortalised by a genius. No one would destroy that. But maybe they would hide it … The connoisseurs and historians only knew of the original through old engravings – Titian had made no copy. And so, gradually, everyone forgot about Vespucci. In time The Skin Hunter sank into oblivion and became little more than a myth. Forgotten – even in Venice. Only a few in the art world remembered.’

  A moment passed. Nino was the first to speak.

  ‘What are you going to do with it? Sell it?’

  ‘Sell it?’ Gaspare repeated. ‘Yes, I could sell it and make a fortune. I could trade it, pass it on to a dozen collectors. We could – all three of us – become rich. But at what cost?’ His tone darkened. ‘This portrait is the art world’s Macbeth. For centuries no one mentioned it, for fear of bad luck. No one talked of Angelico Vespucci, or his victims. No one mentioned The Skin Hunter.’ He turned his back on the image. ‘I can’t sell it. I can only hide it. Put it out of harm’s way. Make sure it’s never seen again …’ He stared at both of them intently. ‘The three of us must make an agreement, here and now, never to speak of this to anyone. Never to mention that the painting has been found.’

  ‘You can’t expect—’

  At once, Gaspare cut her off. ‘Seraphina, go home to Venice and forget everything that’s happened here—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Listen to me!’ the old man shouted. ‘I’m trying to protect you. Both of you.’ He turned to Nino. ‘What I said to Seraphina applies to you also. Forget you ever saw this portrait. It’s dangerous—’

  ‘Dangerous?’ Nino countered, studying Gaspare Reni. He had never seen the dealer unnerved before. Full of bluster, many times. Overambitious and charming, often. But afraid, never. And he wondered about the story, about how a black rumour could prey on an old man’s mind.

  ‘It’s just a painting. What can a painting do?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I fear it,’ Gaspare admitted. ‘And I have good reason. You see, it was said that if the portrait of Angelico Vespucci ever emerged, so would the man.’

  Venice, 1555

  From where I am sitting I can see the painter, Titian, and walking beside him that most bestial of men, Pietro Aretino. He is pompous with his fame, thinks Destiny suckles him. All of Venice reads his work, licentious, vicious and immoral, but clever. He whores with the courtesans and eats until his girth hangs over the tops of his legs, his cloaks cut wide to cover him. And yet the artist loves him. Loves him like a dog with a history of malice, which is fed nonetheless.

  They say Aretino attacked his mother and was forced to flee his birthplace. They say he was exiled from Rome for scurrilous libels and sordid writings. They say the Kings of France and England cosset him to quieten his pen. They say Aretino has many women in Venice. And more boys. And still the painter loves him.

  Titian is growing a longer beard now, which suits his features. Wealthy, sleek but not cruel, he raises his hand in greeting to someone out of my line of sight. Aretino laughs with the painter then blunders off, his feet flat from the burden they carry, his hair cotton white at the crown.

  Aretino does not know me. Would not have noticed me once over the years, though I have watched him avidly. His arrogance would dismiss me out of hand, his ambition would count me worthless. While he parades his talents, I hone mine. For it is a special talent to go unnoticed. An art to pass unseen, to be a watching, listening shadow. A vengeful, unexpected shade.

  I have seen the influence Aretino has on the painter. I have watched the genius Titian take this cancer to his breast. He lets the writer speak and plead for him, flatter and cajole his patrons, travel overseas as his ambassador. And – he would have the world believe – Aretino does it all for nothing. In the name of friendship.

  I know otherwise …

  He will never realise how I await the opportunity to strike.

  I know his weakness. For all his bombast, he looks to Titian as a cripple to a cross. The painter is his Saviour. His apologist. His ally. His womb of gold, his entrée to the elite, and the one true friend he will come to betray.

  But for now Aretino has no premonitions. He has no intimation of his downfall, nor presentiment of doom. He walks likes a man loved and protected and never sees the shadow always one step behind him.

  5

  Venice

  The tour guide was wondering why anyone, even a tourist, would want to visit Venice at the beginning of November. He certainly wouldn’t be coming back; he’d stick to working the London tours instead. Fuck Italy … Pulling the hood of the plastic raincoat over his head, he felt the seeping damp curling around the boat, the sick bobbing of the tide drubbing his insides. He would, he promised himself, get a brandy as soon as he had finished the last lap of the tour. Not that the passengers on the launch could see that much anyway. The high tide had brought in the sea mist and only brief glimpses of Venetian landmarks flickered intermittently in front of them, like a Victorian light box manned by a drunk.

  Lurching over to one side of the launch, the guide righted himself and reached for his microphone again. Swallowing a queasy reflex, he started to talk.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if you look to your right you can see St Mark’s.’ He peered blankly into the mist and the passengers struggled to see anything. ‘Here are the famous lions of St Mark’s Square, and the famous …’

  His lips were moving automatically, going through the drill he had perfected. He could do it in his sleep, he had told his wife; the patter was second nature now, he had said it so often. In fact, he admitted, he could peel off yards of tourist information without engaging his brain at all … You should see them lapping it all up, he said to her. Thinking they’re cultured … Cultured, my arse! They all piled back to the cruise ship quick enough afterwards, hustling their way to the 24-hour bars.

  ‘… and if you look in the distance – I’m afraid, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll have to take my word for it today – you can see the Lazzaretto Vecchio, the island where they used to put the plague victims. Recently they’ve dug up over two thousand bodies …’ A thrill went round the boat. ‘… About five hundred people a day used to die in Lazzaretto Vecchio. The Venetian chronicler Benedetti wrote, “Workers collected the dead and threw them in the graves all day … Often the dying ones were taken for dead and thrown on the piled corpses.”’ The guide paused automatically, to add some extra emphasis. ‘“Manotti – literally vultures – were hired sextons who carried the dead from the streets to the massive graves. By night, however, the manotti broke into homes, threatening to haul the healthy to the lazzaretto if their demands were not satisfied.”’

  ‘My God!’ someone said in a hushed whisper as the launch made its choppy progress, the guide continuing his patter.

  ‘Of course the Venetian courtesans were famed for their beauty and their learning. Titian – the great painter – immortalised many of them, including Veronica Franco. But although she had been a great beauty and a favourite of the nobility, she died in poverty.’

  He paused again. Hell fire, the guide thought, it was getting even colder, and the mist was turning into a fog. He felt a momentary pity for the honeymoon couple on board. Then, watching them giggling, he reckoned that even a swamping fog could hardly put them off their stroke. Oh, what he’d do to be back in London, in bed with his wife. Their honeymoon had been a belter …

  ‘Titian’s beautiful models were famed for their colouring, hence Titian hair.’ He continued, then paused, waited for the nods of agreement, the sharing of a well-known fact. ‘But what most people don’t know is that at the time it was fashionable
for women to wear—’

  A sharp knock against the side of the launch made the vessel shudder and the guide grabbed the side of a seat to steady himself.

  ‘Jesus!’ a passenger said. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Looks like a package or something,’ another remarked, as the guide moved over to the side and looked down into the deep water.

  Grasping the handrail, he leaned out. What was going on now? he thought irritably. Bloody hell, not trouble with the boat again? … The mist was obscuring his view, then – for an instant – it lessened and he strained forward to look deeper into the water. But he could see nothing. No debris, no dead birds, no wreckage and certainly nothing big enough to cause the boat to shudder. Leaning a little further out, he looked again, almost losing his grip as a bulky object suddenly lurched upwards with the current. Shaken, the guide stared, transfixed, as it turned slowly in the murky water just as the mist cleared. Then the woman’s body was momentarily illuminated in a spit of sunlight. Her skinned face glowered like a mad angel from the water, her body flayed from the neck down.

  Seraphina Morgan – once Seraphina di Fattori – had been killed only a hundred yards from the apartment she had shared with her husband. She had died within the echo of the bells from St Mark’s, and within sight of Angelico Vespucci’s old home.

  6

  Grand Central Library, New York

  Between Lexington and Third Avenue stands the New York Grand Central Library, as doughty and solid as a battleship. Through its corridors, stairways, reading rooms and storage, thousands of students, reluctant school kids, lecturers and professors have passed. Some have returned; others remember the building as they would school: to be avoided at all costs. But for many the New York Grand Central Library is comforting and endlessly fascinating, the lure of the books a sop to the hustle of the world outside, the pages a balm to the troubled mind.

  Seated on his own at one of the smaller tables was Reginald Oscar Theodore Jones, known to all in the art world as Triumph Jones. The sobriquet would suggest a man of some hubris, in keeping with his ridiculously victorious reputation, but the keeper of the nickname was, in fact, a reserved, middle-aged, six-foot-tall African–American. Slender as a reed, bald as a sheet of glass, his face lean and intelligent, Triumph Jones was, at that moment, hunkered over the book he was studying intently. The loud crashing of a library cart against one of the nearby tables did not force an irritated look or a curt remark. His whole attention was fixed on the page to the extent that he jumped when touched lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘I guessed you’d be here,’ the woman said, ignoring Triumph as he put his finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence. Sliding into the seat beside him, she dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘I suppose you’ve heard?’

  ‘About what?’ His voice was slow, suggesting a certain sluggishness of thought. Many a dealer had been caught out, taking him for a fool. Although they only ever did so once.

  ‘You know what I mean – the Vespucci painting.’

  Leaning back in his seat, Triumph studied the woman sitting next to him: Farina Ahmadi, wife of the reclusive Abdul Alim, a retired millionaire based in Turkey. Alim’s acquisition of a collection of Italian Renaissance art had been sudden, purchased greedily over the last ten years by his ultra-competitive and striking wife. Having borne her husband two sons, Farina had then turned her restless mind to business, and her Louboutins had clicked their way through the galleries and auction rooms of London, New York, Tokyo, Sydney and Paris. Still in her thirties, her energy, ruthlessness, taste and money had made her a formidable opponent, and her acolytes made sure that Farina Ahmadi was the first to hear about anything that could increase the Alim Collection.

  ‘So?’ she asked, her dark eyes holding Triumph’s gaze. ‘Have you heard about the Vespucci painting?’

  He took a long moment to consider the question, then shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘No? Is that it?’ she asked, dropping her voice again. Her impatience amused him. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s going on?’

  ‘I’ll hear in time.’

  Her expression hardened. ‘Speaking of time, maybe I’m wasting mine,’ she snapped, pulling the book he was reading towards her. Curious, she read the title. ‘Hieronymus Bosch and the Power of Religion.’ She looked back at him. ‘Is there a Bosch up for sale?’

  ‘I was just reading.’

  ‘You don’t just read, Triumph, you research,’ she said firmly, crossing her legs and smiling.

  Farina knew the power of her smile; it had a contagious quality to it. People couldn’t help smiling back and that always made haggling harder. For them, at least. When she had first come on to the art scene she too had been fooled by Triumph’s demeanour, but time had made her canny and she now admired the elongated, elegant man who was watching her with a look of practised composure.

  ‘I know you’re dying to hear, so I’ll tell you. The notorious portrait of Angelico Vespucci was found in London two days ago. It was in the River Thames.’ She paused, but Triumph said nothing. ‘Gaspare Reni has it …’

  Nodding, he let her continue.

  ‘… Gaspare Reni! Of all people,’ Farina went on. ‘I mean, he’s just not in the top league any more. He’s a busted flush, too old, and with no contacts—’

  ‘Yet he has the painting.’

  She leaned towards Triumph, one hand brushing his arm. ‘I rang him, of course. But he denied having it.’

  Sighing, Triumph turned back to his book. Farina slammed it shut in front of him. ‘For God’s sake, it’s the Titian portrait!’

  ‘I know who painted Angelico Vespucci,’ Triumph replied, reopening the book and regaining his place, ‘but that painting disappeared long ago. It was destroyed – it must have been, or it would have come on to the market before.’ His voice slowed. ‘And why – if it’s genuine – would it turn up in London? Did you say in the River … ?’

  ‘Thames.’

  ‘So it’s ruined?’

  ‘No!’ she snapped, then dropped her voice and moved closer to Triumph. ‘It was only in the water for a short time before it was spotted and taken to Gaspare Reni—’

  ‘And how d’you know this?’

  Farina smiled. ‘I know everything that goes on in the art world, Triumph.’

  ‘Everything?’

  She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her or mocking her. ‘Implying that you know more?’ Her hand gripped the sleeve of his two-thousand-dollar suit. ‘Triumph, we both want this painting.’

  ‘It’s bad luck—’

  ‘It’s Titian,’ she snorted. ‘I want it for my husband. The copy was all well and good—’

  He cut her off. ‘You have a copy of the Vespucci portrait?’

  ‘Yes, a good one. I commissioned it a couple of years ago from some painter on their uppers. They copied it from old engravings.’ She changed tack. ‘But if I could get the original for Abdul, that would be incredible.’

  Expressionless, Triumph studied her. It was rumoured that she had made a pact with her husband, Abdul Alim. He liked privacy, she liked to socialise. He liked family, she liked to live like a single woman. And so, in return for her having given him two sturdy sons, they had come to an agreement. The father would support and raise the children, leaving the mother free to bolster the Alim Art Collection.

  ‘Does your husband know that the painting’s turned up?’

  ‘No!’ she said hurriedly. ‘And I don’t want him to. I just want to get it for him and see his face when I take it home. It would do wonders for the collection. Kick a few people in the crotch. It’s infamous. Imagine the publicity—’

  ‘Farina,’ Triumph said evenly, ‘why are you telling me about this? You know I’ll beat you if I go after it. So why confide? It’s foolish.’ He looked back at his book. ‘The painting must be a fake.’

  ‘It’s genuine!’

  ‘Have you seen it?’ Triumph asked, turning over a page and staring at a coloured illustrati
on.

  ‘I’m flying to London tonight to try and get a look at it,’ Farina replied.

  She couldn’t understand why Triumph was being so cool. Did he already know about the Titian? God forbid he had already got to Gaspare Reni. Or worse, did Triumph know that the painting was a fake? Was he reeling her into a set-up?

  ‘Are you the only dealer who knows about it?’

  She nodded. ‘Apart from you, I think so.’

  ‘What about Jobo Kido?’

  Farina’s eyebrows rose. She had already worked out that the Japanese dealer would want the painting. She might long to place it in the Alim Collection, but by rights the portrait of a murderer would suit Kido more. His fascination with killers was legendary. Hadn’t he recently bought a painting by the notorious Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa – a picture few dealers would touch, let alone buy?

  ‘I don’t know if Kido’s heard about the Titian,’ Farina said at last. ‘But he’ll want it, I know that much.’

  Triumph looked up from his book.

  ‘If I remember correctly, Titian painted Angelico Vespucci over a period when four women were murdered and skinned.’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Farina said impatiently. ‘I know – he was called The Skin Hunter.’

  ‘As I said before, the painting’s bad luck—’

  ‘Only to the dealers who don’t manage to get it,’ she replied smartly. ‘There’s no bad luck in business. You just have to see an opportunity and grab it. This painting’s notorious. Think of the number of people who’d pay to see it, to revel in The Skin Hunter out of ghoulish curiosity. Besides, I don’t believe that paintings have any power of their own.’ Smiling, she folded her arms. ‘For God’s sake, Triumph, this is the twenty-first century. They might have believed all kinds of superstitious crap in Titian’s time, but not now.’