Isle of the Dead

by Alex Connor

They say we have our city back. The darkness has left us; gone with Vespucci and his likeness. Gone with the merchant and the merchant’s image. Gone on some nether tide, out to the sea, to the slithering depths of all damnation. They say we are no longer bewitched.

  Look how the Doge recovers, the ships coming back to land.

  They say the coldest and most terrible of winters is passed; that God is back among us. Some even tell of flowers come to blossom, of fruit ripening out of season, and angels settling on the bell tower of St Mark’s.

  But Titian sees no angels, paints no flowers. He grieves. A lesser man would seek out some revenge, but his regret is contained, and swells like a boil in the heart. He walks Venice like a man without his shadow and a hollow grows inside him.

  And I watch him. As I watch Aretino. I see what others see, but Venice is not delivered yet.

  Aretino might have picked the merchant’s grave and made him own it, but another waits. The water sits beneath us, its cold wet mouth yawning in the darkness, its gills moving with the tide. It waits for the bloated carcass of Aretino to fall, panicked and gasping, into the muddy hollow of its lair.

  Under the water he will go. Down with the dead soldiers, dogs and devils. Down with Vespucci, caught up in all the green weeds of his lies. Down with the suicides, the lusty priests, the cripples and the damned. Down with all the other traitors.

  But Aretino suspects nothing. He walks like a man who has rid himself of a threat, and is now sure of forgiveness. For Titian loves him still. In time he would, against judgement and logic, allow Aretino to return. Against reason, and tempting destruction, he would let him in.

  He would.

  But I will not.

  62

  29 December

  In Kensington, Nino Bergstrom was on his computer, looking for Rachel. Working his way through newspaper art pages and internet listings, he turned to the Spotlight magazine for actors. But there was only one Rachel who was white, young and pretty.

  He rang her, but a man answered, apparently her husband. Without alarming anyone, Nino asked if she would be available for an interview, only to be told that Rachel was in hospital preparing for the birth of her second child, in two weeks’ time.

  Wrong Rachel.

  Checking Spotlight, and the US version of the actors’ magazine, he looked for any reference to productions about Vespucci being cast. Nothing. Then he turned to The Stage and searched that paper. Again, there was nothing referring to The Skin Hunter, Angelico Vespucci, or even plays set in Venice. In desperation, Nino trailed through every forthcoming play about murderers and their crimes – of which there were many.

  It seemed that every town, city or state was putting on some play about a killer. But none of them were about Angelico Vespucci. The morning came and went, Gaspare made lunch and Nino kept working. At three, the dealer went to a hospital appointment and Nino returned to the archives in the London Central Library, looking back into the past. Perhaps something had been written before, and was being rewritten? Again, he drew a blank. He worked through every listing he could find about theatre staff in the UK and the USA, looking for Rachel. But Nino knew it was a long shot. The theatrical world was a movable feast – people came and went monthly, or changed their names, or moved into different areas. And he didn’t know what the elusive Rachel actually did. Actor, manager, agent, painter, costume designer or stage doorman. His request to discover the names of angels – the backers who put up money for shows – was met with silence. Most wanted to remain anonymous.

  December 28 had passed, December 29 was coming in, and still Nino had nothing to go on. At one point he even wondered if he was completely off target, if the victim had simply been photographed in front of a theatre without having any connection to it. Deflated, he then checked his last search – and this time there was a result: three theatres whose names began with HA.

  HAMPTON THEATRE

  HAILSTONE THEATRE

  THE HAMLET THEATRE

  The first was in Basingstoke, the second in Dorset and the third in Battersea.

  Tapping out the name of The Hamlet Theatre, Nino entered their website. At the top of the home page was a list of reviews, all favourable and widespread in the press, some of the theatre’s actors surprisingly well known.

  Welcome!

  We are a small company, but one of the most innovative in the UK. Although we have only been in existence for seven years, our play on W. H. Auden – Salut, Salut – was a hit on Broadway in New York, and in the West End, London.

  At present we are working on several new ideas, one of which might be an investigation into a charismatic, but murderous, figure from the past.

  A charismatic, but murderous, figure from the past … Nino couldn’t think of a better way to describe Angelico Vespucci. Checking the phone number, he rang the theatre and a young woman answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I was wondering if I could speak with …’ Nino glanced at the computer, ‘Harvey Enright.’

  ‘Who’s speaking, please?’

  ‘My name’s Nino Bergstrom and I think I might want to invest in your theatre,’ Nino lied, knowing it would get him put through. And it did.

  Within an instant an affected English voice came over the line. ‘Hello? Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m thinking of becoming an angel,’ Nino said, glancing repeatedly at his notes. ‘I don’t know much about any of this, forgive me. But I’ve come into some money and shares hardly seem the way to go at the moment.’ He blundered on, wondering how convincing he sounded. ‘I’d like to invest. Perhaps in your theatre. Well, your productions anyway. I’m very interested in new companies, and yours seems to be very …’

  ‘Thrusting.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nino replied, ‘that’s the word … I know very little about the theatrical world. You see, I’ve been working in the film business for a long time, but want to change tack.’ He checked his notes again. ‘On your website you talk about a new production you might be undertaking, about a murderer from the past?’

  ‘Yes,’ Enright agreed. ‘We have two plays in mind. The one we most want to pursue at the moment is about a woman who works in engineering and discovers a talent for invention.’

  Nino grimaced. ‘And the other one?’

  ‘Well, it was a good idea, unique. But lately the character in question has been getting a lot of press.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A man called Angelico Vespucci,’ Enright replied, and as Nino heard the name he let out a long, relieved breath. ‘Unfortunately there have been some murders recently, copies of his crimes. You might have read about it?’

  ‘Yes, I think I have. Fascinating character. Were you writing the play yourself?’

  ‘No, I’m no wordsmith. Directing is my forte.’

  ‘So who’s writing the play?’

  ‘Rachel—’ he replied.

  Nino was hardly breathing. ‘Oh, Rachel! I know her, I think. Rachel Andrews? Came from Brighton originally?’

  ‘No,’ Enright replied. ‘Rachel Pitt. She’s from up north, Lake District. Smashing girl. Anyway, she’s actually our Assistant Stage Manager, but she had this idea for a play. Apparently she’s been working on it for a long time. Ran it past me, and frankly it sounded interesting … Would you like to come in and talk, Mr Bergstrom? We’d be delighted to chat to any angel, existing or prospective.’

  Making a non-committal remark, Nino rang off. The name hummed in his head – Rachel Pitt, from up north, the Lake District. Rachel Pitt … Grabbing the London telephone directory, he found three people called R. Pitt. After phoning the first two – Ronald Pitt and Rita Pitt – he tried the last number.

  This was it. This had to be Rachel Pitt. He had found her. Now he could warn her. He could prevent her death … The number rang. Again, and again. It rang out, then finally was answered.

  Hi, this is Rachel. Sorry, there’s no one here at the moment. If you want to leave me a message and number, feel free.


  Distraught that she hadn’t picked up, he left a message.

  This is Nino Bergstrom. Please call me as soon as possible, it is urgent. Please, Ms Pitt, call me when you get this message.

  Leaving his number, he put down the phone, and realised his hand was shaking.

  63

  Lake District, 30 December

  Waking late, Rachel turned over in bed and opened her eyes. Where the hell was she? And then she remembered and stretched lazily. She had managed – by the sheer fluke of someone cancelling at the last minute – to rent a tiny cottage for Christmas and New Year, close to where her father had been born. It was in a village called Crook – a stone house hardly large enough for a hobbit, but cosy. ‘El dar la bienvenida,’ Michael would have said, curling the Spanish vowels around his tongue … She shook off the thought of him, unwilling to let him in. The cottage was hers, filled with provisions, wine and plenty of cut logs for the fire. She did have neighbours, but it seemed that on both sides they were away for the festivities, which left Rachel pretty much alone. Only this was a different type of aloneness. This was away from London and the flat and it smelt, looked, and even felt different. It felt hopeful.

  Since arriving the previous day she had walked endlessly, enjoying the landscape – such a contrast from built-up Battersea. She had even spent a whole hour watching a farmer rounding up sheep, not noticing that the rain had started and her boots were waterlogged. A peace she hadn’t felt for years came like a salutation to another life, a choice she had long denied herself now possible. Up in the hills, with the rain and the sound of drinkers leaving the village pub at eleven, bathing in a small enamel bath and drinking water that tasted of the mountains, Rachel experienced an epiphany which was long overdue.

  She had forgotten the loneliness which had dogged her. Even on her own, she wasn’t as bereft as sitting in her flat and waiting, endlessly waiting, for the phone to ring. It was a relief not to have to think up ways to amuse, seduce, or interest her lover. It was a release not to be terrorised by her silent phone, or urgent text messages. And slowly Rachel came to realise that loving Michael had become a form of penance.

  How could she be anything other than an appendage to his life? While she made him the nucleus of her world, he had a wife and children, a career, a dozen social duties and membership of clubs. When he was with her, he loved her. But how much of his attention could she hold when he was elsewhere?

  The answer was brutal. But it was only up in the hills of the Lake District, away from pylons and mobile-phone masts, trains, subways and sirens, that she could hear it. And as the days passed Rachel became dislocated from her previous life: her life with Michael. Instead her career slipped back into top gear, her attention moving back to the Hamlet Theatre. Amused, she lay back on the pillows, her hands behind her head, thinking of Angelico Vespucci.

  It was a fabulous idea to write a play about him. She knew it, had always known it, but her ambition had waned as her neediness had grown. Ideas, words, images that would once have shimmered inside her had turned to ash and, incredulously, seeing her actions at arm’s length, she did not know herself.

  When she returned to Battersea, to the Hamlet Theatre, she would talk to Enright again, get him geed up about the play. She could do it, she could get him back on side. He was already hooked, she could see that. And besides, Rachel thought, there was plenty of interest in Vespucci now … She rolled over on to her side, looking out of the tiny window down into the village below. Since she arrived she hadn’t bought a paper or turned on the television. She had left her mobile behind, and there was no telephone in the cottage. But she could remember only too well reading about The Skin Hunter before she left London. It had been on the news and all over the internet, and the last piece she had read had been sent from the killer – some lunatic taunting the police to find him before he killed again.

  Yawning, Rachel pulled the duvet over her and closed her eyes. Soon it would be New Year, and she had already decided on her resolution. She would end the affair, slough it off her body like dead skin, and return to the theatre. There she would hustle and bargain and push until Enright agreed to put on her play. He liked it. He was just nervous about her being a newcomer. So what? Rachel thought confidently. There had to be a beginning for everyone.

  She relaxed into the pillows, sliding into sleep. Outside the last of the daylight slunk down into the lifeless trees, the hills snow-tipped and quiet, no cars about, no sounds. Only the drinkers inside the pub, calling last orders at the ringing of the bell.

  64

  30 December

  As he walked up the front steps to the block of flats in Battersea, Nino could see a family watching television in a front room, and rang the ground-floor buzzer. He heard someone curse and an Indian man opened the door and stared at him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m looking for Rachel Pitt,’ Nino explained. ‘She lives upstairs.’

  ‘So?’ the man asked as his wife moved into the hall behind him.

  Pushing him aside, she smiled at Nino. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Rachel Pitt lives upstairs, doesn’t she? I need to talk to her – it’s urgent.’

  ‘Such a lovely girl, so very kind. Is it bad news?’ the woman asked as her husband walked back into the front room.

  ‘Someone in her family’s been taken ill,’ Nino lied. ‘I can’t get her on the phone and she’s not answering her bell.’

  ‘Oh, she went away. She’s on holiday until New Year—’

  ‘Until New Year?’ Nino repeated sharply. ‘D’you know where’s she gone?’

  She put up her hands for a moment, calling for her husband. ‘Daruka! Daruka!’

  He came back into the hall, his expression impatient. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do you remember where Rachel said she was going on holiday? This gentleman needs to contact her; someone in the family is ill.’

  Shaking his head, he moved closer. ‘She did tell me, but I can’t … the mountains somewhere.’

  ‘The mountains?’ Nino repeated. ‘In this country?’

  ‘Yes, yes, in England.’

  ‘The Peak District?’ Nino offered.

  ‘No. That is not it.’ He turned to his wife again, speaking Hindi’, then turned back to Nino. ‘Up north—’

  ‘The Lake District?’

  ‘Yes!’ he agreed, nodding. ‘That’s it. She’s gone to the Lake District.’

  ‘D’you know where in the Lakes?’

  ‘No. She said it was a village. That’s all.’

  As her husband moved back into the house the Indian woman looked at Nino sympathetically. ‘I’m so sorry we can’t help you more.’

  Frustrated, he hesitated on the doorstep. To have come so far and hit another dead end. Rachel Pitt was up in the Lake District, but where? It was a big place, with God knows how many villages. It would take him days to check them all out. Days he didn’t have.

  Changing tack, he asked, ‘D’you know where her family live?’

  ‘She only has a mother, and she never talks about her. Not lately, anyway.’ The woman paused, suddenly suspicious. ‘I thought you said it was someone in her family who was ill?’

  ‘It’s a cousin. He lives abroad,’ Nino said, hurrying on. ‘Look, I have to find Rachel. It’s important. You have no idea how important.’ Scribbling his name on a piece of paper he gave it to the woman. ‘Please, help me. I have to find her.’

  She looked at him, concerned. ‘Is she in trouble?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Worse. She’s in danger.’

  65

  His glasses pushed up on his balding head, Gaspare was relaxing in the sitting room, listening to Rachmaninov. No matter how many times he heard the piece, he was moved by it, temporarily taken away from his anxieties, suspended between D flat and middle C. So when he noticed a sound break through the music, he was surprised and went downstairs.

  Someone was knocking on the back door. He could see a large figure outlined again
st the glass and hesitated, remembering his previous heroics.

  ‘Mr Reni! Mr Reni!’ the voice shouted.

  Cautious, Gaspare approached the door. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Jonathan Ravenscourt.’

  Keeping the chain on, Gaspare opened the door a couple of inches. ‘What d’you want?’

  Ravenscourt was flustered and dishevelled. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know you.’

  ‘You know of me—’

  ‘Yes, and I don’t like what I hear,’ Gaspare replied, his tone sharp. ‘You got a friend of mine in trouble with the police – I had to dig him out of it.’

  ‘I retracted my statement!’ Ravenscourt said, pushing at the door. ‘Look, I’m not going to hurt you, I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Not physically anyway. What I did to Nino Bergstrom was wrong, but I’ve sorted it out with the police now and I want to help him out. For God’s sake, let me in! On come on, Mr Reni, I ask you – do I look like a maniac?’

  Relenting, Gaspare took off the safety chain and Ravens-court moved into the kitchen and took off his cashmere coat. His trousers and shoes were spattered with mud.

  ‘I came to ask you something,’ he said, ‘something about the Titian—’

  ‘Not that bloody painting again,’ Gaspare said dismissively. ‘I wish I’d never set eyes on the thing. It’s been nothing but trouble—’

  ‘Of course you know all about it.’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘About there being another murder?’

  ‘Yes, and Nino’s on a wild goose chase, trying to find the last victim. The police can’t find the killer, so God knows why he thinks he can.’ He looked at Ravenscourt’s dirtied clothes. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘Mud?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look like you’ve been rolling in mud.’ Gaspare tilted his head to one side. ‘I don’t want to offend you, Mr Ravens-court, but I don’t believe a word of what you’re telling me. I don’t think you’re trying to make up for what you did to Nino. I think,’ he paused, wily to a fault, ‘that you’re trying to find out what’s going on. If we know anything. And if the Titian’s been found—’