by Ewan, Chris
‘Quite.’
I felt my shoulders sag. ‘She might have been trying to contact me.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘And I can’t call her, because my only record of her number was in the phone.’ Almost as I said it, a fresh idea struck me. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘can’t you put the SIM card in your mobile?’
‘Tried it already. Thing’s completely dead.’
‘Balls.’
‘Quite.’
Victoria gave me a final squeeze and pulled away, shuddering. It seemed our hug was officially over.
‘Do you really think Graziella planned for this Count Borelli character to be killed when he opened the case?’ she asked me.
I returned my attention to the ragged tear in the fascia of the building, the avalanche of rubble and the decimated balcony. ‘Has to be what she had in mind,’ I muttered.
‘Not necessarily. It could be she just wanted to destroy the items in the vault.’
I stroked my chin for a moment, considering the notion. ‘But the bomb was triggered by my opening the case. If she’d just wanted to torch his valuables, she would have used a remote detonator. Or better still, she could have tasked me with opening the vault and lighting a fire.’
‘Maybe she was afraid you’d help yourself to one or two of the goodies before burning them.’
‘If I’d had my way, I’d have helped myself to the whole lot. But she must have assumed the risk of not getting my book back would stop me. Unless . . .’ I raised a finger to my lips and let my thoughts stretch their legs for a moment.
‘Yes?’
‘Well, maybe she thought the Count would open the case elsewhere. And Boom! – once he was out of the way, she could empty the vault in her own sweet time.’
‘So what does that make Graziella? She has to be more than just a burglar, right? Are we dealing with an assassin here?’
‘Possibly.’ I made a humming noise in my throat. ‘Though it doesn’t really fit. I’d have thought a professional killer would want to carry out a hit by themselves. They wouldn’t entrust the job to a random thief who might screw it up. And she seemed . . . I don’t know, put upon when we met. As if she was caught up in something that was bigger than her.’
‘But she had the bomb, Charlie. If we assume she was the one who made it . . .’
‘Hell of an assumption.’
She rolled out her bottom lip. ‘Even so, there has to be much more to her than we first thought, right?’
‘Maybe.’
‘No maybe about it. Listen Charlie, I really think we should—’
‘Hush,’ I said.
‘Excuse me?’
I leaned close to her ear. ‘Don’t look round, but there’s a man behind you who seems to be very interested in our conversation.’
There was, too. I’d been watching him for some minutes from the corner of my eye, shuffling gradually towards us. Perhaps his behaviour alone would have been enough to make me suspicious, but what really raised my hackles was the fact we’d met before. And all right, we hadn’t shared a long and amorous conversation over a bottle of grappa, but he wasn’t the type of chap I could easily overlook.
The heavy camel-hair coat hung loosely from his ample shoulders, spreading like a tepee above his shiny black shoes and fluffy white sport socks, and his fedora was balanced precariously among his curling black locks; the ratty feather poking out from his hat band looking like something he’d swiped from a diseased San Marco pigeon. His knotty beard and wonky gait gave him the appearance of a rabbi on the skids, and although there was no feral cat entwined around his ankles, in every other respect he looked just the same as when I’d spotted him lurking in a restaurant doorway on Calledei Fabbri shortly before I’d broken into the bookshop.
Victoria’s eyes had widened with alarm, and I could tell it was all she could do to stop herself from turning to stare. ‘An eavesdropper?’ she said, stiff-jawed.
‘Something like that,’ I told her. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
SEVENTEEN
I led Victoria through the crowds by her hand, dragging her behind me until we emerged from the group of onlookers to find ourselves beside the entrance to a restaurant. A waiter dressed in smart black trousers and a red jacket was leaning against the wall, a cigarette glowing from behind his cupped hand. He dropped and extinguished it with a twist of his shoe.
‘For two, Signore, for two?’
I shook my head at him and turned to look behind us. The man in the camel-hair coat was barging folks aside, following. His limp was dragging him down to the left, like a tanker that had been overloaded and was listing to port.
‘Keep moving,’ I said to Victoria, and yanked her on into Campo San Giacomo.
The lighted bars and trattorias of the square were beginning to fill. Young people had gathered outside with drinks and cigarettes in their hands. Some had dogs on leads – sausage dogs and terriers and miniature dachshunds, all of them dressed in snazzy winter coats or knitted sweaters. I ushered Victoria towards the Rialto Bridge.
Street salt was being cast around the steps at the foot of the bridge by a stooped character in a high-vis jacket. I rounded him and held tightly to the stone balustrade with one hand and to Victoria with the other, then raised myself onto my toes to scan the clutch of jewellery and handbag stalls we’d hurried through.
A feathered black fedora bobbed along past the green canvas shelter of a restaurant targeted at holidaymakers. Half-hearted fairy lights twinkled beside a stand featuring a menu of photographed meals. The man hobbled by without pausing to make a selection.
‘Can you see him?’ Victoria asked.
‘Yup,’ I said, pulling her on. ‘Hard not to.’
‘Who is he?’ she asked, in a breathless voice.
‘No idea.’ And I was far from sure I wanted to find out.
The pale stone bridge was illuminated by powerful floodlights from below and the stark glow made Victoria’s face appear worryingly gaunt.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Just away.’
‘But he’s not really following us, is he? Charlie?’ She turned to check over her shoulder and lost her footing. ‘Crap,’ she said.
‘You see him?’
‘The big beardy one in the funny hat? Looks like a bear?’
‘That’s our guy.’
We climbed until we reached the middle of the bridge span. I pulled Victoria through the central arch, into the crush of tourists and garishly lit shops, their interiors brimming over with painted carnival masks and yellowing lace, hunks of plastic glass, paper fans, disposable cameras and postcards.
Victoria freed herself from my grip, her lips peeling back over her teeth as she drew a sharp breath. ‘Ouch,’ she said, shaking her hand.
‘Sorry. Didn’t realise I was hurting you.’
‘Do you think he heard what we were saying?’
‘I sincerely hope not.’
As I finished speaking, a tout in a dirty windbreaker approached us with an armful of single red roses wrapped in cellophane. He held one out to me and inclined his head towards Victoria.
‘You buy rose for beautiful lady?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I snapped.
‘No rose for beautiful lady?’
‘Go away.’
He lifted the rose to my face, prodding it beneath my nose. ‘Is beautiful rose, yes?’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake. Here.’ I snatched it from him, forcing it on Victoria, and rummaged in my pocket for some money. I slapped a note into his open palm. ‘Now, go away.’
I made a shooing gesture with my hand, which perhaps wasn’t my finest moment, and turned to find Victoria gripping the rose in an awkward fashion, a look of bemusement on her face.
‘Seemed the easiest way to get rid of him,’ I said with a shrug.
‘Such a romantic.’ She craned her neck to peer over the heads and shoulders surrounding us. ‘This man with the beard. Why would he w
ant to follow us?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. The worrying thing is I’ve seen him before.’
Her eyes bulged. ‘You have? When?’
‘When I broke into the bookshop. He was nearby.’
She clasped a hand to her forehead. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Beyond her shoulder, I caught sight of his sizeable reflection in the tinted glass of a shop window. ‘We have to move again.’
We did just that, leaving the bridge behind and taking random alleys and even more random turns, doing a good job of thoroughly disorientating ourselves until I happened to spy Campo Manin up ahead. We caught our breath beneath the oxidised and pigeon-pooped statue of Daniele Manin in the middle of the square. By virtue of Manin’s large overcoat, crumpled clothes and flowing locks, the statue bore a striking resemblance to our pursuer.
‘Do you think we’re being paranoid?’ Victoria asked me, doubled over with her hands on her hips.
‘I’d like to be able to say yes,’ I told her, arching my back and exhaling a long plume of vapour into the evening sky.
‘Well, why don’t you then?’
‘Because,’ I groaned, ‘I can see him again.’
‘No.’
We set off at speed once more, ploughing through tangled lanes, swerving around tourists and darting into ever thinner and more contorted channels. Past blackened walls, shuttered windows and barred doors. Past neglected bars and vacant businesses covered in peeling fly-posters. Past torn bags of litter and beneath lines of tattered laundry. On into the gnarled and twisted labyrinth, until I no longer had the faintest idea which direction we were heading in.
‘Wait!’ I called out, stopping abruptly, and Victoria thumped into me from behind, her rose tickling the back of my neck with a rustle of cellophane.
We’d passed through a low sotoportego – the gloomy underpass running beneath a terrace of buildings – and were halfway along a rambling, unlit calle that I couldn’t recall having visited before. The walls were so close that there wasn’t room for us to stand alongside one another. Up ahead, the street ended in the dull, dark-green glimmer of slow-moving water. The putrescent stench of wet mud was overwhelming. There was no bridge and nowhere to turn. Just the dilapidated buildings leaning precariously towards one another above our heads and the silence between.
In other words, a dead end.
Hmm. I looked back to where we’d come from. The entrance to the alley was a considerable distance away, beneath the flat overhang of the buildings that lined the adjoining street. There was nothing to suggest we were here. No reason at all for him to find us.
And yet he did. Lurching into the twilit passage, his bulging shoulders skimmed the sooty brickwork on either side of him until he twisted with a grunt and limped forward at an angle. I began to wonder if he might get wedged between the tilting walls, and if he did, whether he’d be incapable of moving backwards – like a shark.
Victoria cursed, then fumbled in her handbag.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Pepper spray,’ she told me. Her hand emerged gripping the lipstick-shaped canister she’d shown me back at my apartment. She must have taken it from her weapons stash when I wasn’t looking.
‘Whoa.’ I steadied her wrist and prised the canister out of her fingers. The last thing we needed was for her to assault a complete stranger.
No, it seemed to me the situation required a little more finesse. Something to dissuade the brute from lingering, but that avoided confrontation. I’d heard that grizzly bears could be warded off by a high-pitched whistle, though I somehow doubted that would work. I titled Victoria’s face up by the chin.
‘Kiss me,’ I said.
‘Eh?’
‘Kiss me,’ I whispered.
‘You what?’
I swooped. Her lips were still framing her words, and they squirmed awkwardly beneath my own. She made a noise of protest in the back of her throat and shaped as if to step away but I used her momentum to push her back into the grimy wall behind her, as if overcome with passion.
Her lips were rigidly still. I nuzzled a little on the bottom one, then sneaked a look at her. Victoria’s eyes were squeezed closed, face pinched, as if a dreaded aunty was planting a sloppy one right on her.
I lifted my hand to conceal the side of her face and kissed my way around to her ear. She seemed to quiver and relax just a fraction. By the time I approached the lobe, a rogue hand had slipped down to my buttocks with an undeniable clench.
‘That’s right,’ I told her, and cupped her waist. She groaned and pressed herself against me. ‘Make it look good for the bastard.’
It may have been my imagination, but Victoria seemed to hesitate for a moment.
‘Sorry?’ she panted.
‘If we make him think we came down here for some privacy, he may leave us alone.’
I returned my attentions to her mouth. Raising my eyes, I caught sight of an odd expression on her face – a look of consternation mixed in with something else. What was that – Terror? Disgust? Nausea? Her pupils slid sideways.
‘He still there?’ I asked.
‘Uh huh.’
‘Best take it up a notch.’
I lifted her arms above her head, pressing her wrists flat against the powdery brickwork. I scanned her body for a moment, as if consumed by lust, and then I lunged for her mouth. This time, she dropped the rose and reciprocated, tickling my lips with little darting movements of her tongue. Chest heaving, she pressed into me some more, and then to my surprise, she leapt clean off the floor, wrapped her thighs around my hips and braced her feet flat against the wall behind me.
Snatching her mouth away, she whipped her head to one side. ‘Pervert,’ she yelled, and her voice seemed to amplify as it carried off along the alley. ‘Why don’t you take a picture, you sicko?’
I turned too, my cheek pressed against Victoria’s. His bearded face was shadowed by the walls that sandwiched him, not to mention the low, angled brim of his fedora. His too-short trousers hung comically above the bands of white sock. Breath misted on his swollen lips and I saw his fingers flex and tighten. If this was a Western, I could have believed he was about to go for his gun – not that he could have reached his holster without some serious contortion.
‘Get out of here,’ I shouted. ‘Go find a girl of your own.’
In the silence that followed my words, I heard a hollow bumping noise from behind us followed by a gentle splash. I turned to see a sleek, black prow ease by, followed by two red-velvet love seats, a glimmer of brass and a sprig of fake carnations. A gondolier appeared, dressed in a blue waterproof tunic over a striped jumper and a straw hat with a blue ribbon. He wedged the tip of his oar against the wall at the end of the alley.
‘Gondola, gondola, gondola?’
Normally, whenever I’d heard those words, uttered like a chant by the scavengers who loiter on bridge spans all across the city, it was all I could do not to yell at them to leave me in peace. Now, though, I’d rarely heard anything sweeter.
‘Come on,’ I said, lifting Victoria down from my hips and pushing her ahead of me.
‘You’re not serious?’
‘You have a better idea?’ I asked, gathering her rose from the floor.
‘Pepper spray!’
‘Nuh uh. Not this time.’
The gondolier extended his hand and I lifted Victoria’s arm by the elbow until she was forced to accept. Using his oar as leverage, he walked along the backwards-gliding gondola until the love seats appeared, and then he helped Victoria aboard.
Behind us, our shabby friend with the out-of-control facial hair was simply watching me. He didn’t speak. He didn’t gesture. He didn’t attempt to move closer or back away. He just stood there, a tubby, forlorn figure badly in need of a good shave and a better tailor. And for some reason, I found his stillness the most disturbing thing of all.
‘Signore?’
The gondolier was beckoning to me. He gripped my w
rist as I stepped aboard, then waited until I was seated and the craft had stopped rocking before kicking away from the wall and steering us towards the gloopy blackness ahead.
‘Well,’ I said, offering Victoria the rose, ‘you can’t say I’m not spontaneous.’
She conjured a wavering smile and rested her head on my shoulder, lifting the rose until I sniffed the petals. There didn’t appear to be any scent, at least nothing capable of overcoming the dank smell of the muddy canal.
‘God, that felt so weird,’ she said, and shivered for effect. ‘Didn’t that kiss feel weird to you?’
I swallowed. ‘Uh huh. Weird, all right.’
She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, then seemed to become aware of how it might look. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Not to worry.’ I wrapped a companionable arm around her shoulders. ‘Once we manage to get off this thing, I’ll buy you a drink. I hear alcohol is good for killing germs.’
EIGHTEEN
I wonder how best to describe our gondola trip. Magical? Evocative? Enchanting?
Nope, I think painful should just about cover it. Painful and awkward. Oh, and tense too. So tense, in fact, that by the time we’d finally disembarked, I was clenching my jaw so fiercely that I must have looked as if I’d just survived a rollercoaster ride.
Of course, no theme park in the world would dare charge nearly so much as I was obliged to pay. Still, I guess it takes a born thief to recognise one, and as I emptied my wallet into the palm of our gondolier and held his shameless gaze, I couldn’t help but think that his stripy jumper was strangely apt. Add an eye mask and a bag of swag, and we could have been cousins.
And yet, I can’t say I felt unduly cheated. His timely arrival had saved us from a situation that had made me feel uncomfortable, at the very least, and back in that dead-end alley, I reckon I would have agreed to pay twice as much just to get away.
The gondola had delivered us to Ramo del Selvadego, in the shadow of the Planet Hollywood restaurant just behind Piazza San Marco. There was a cash machine close by, and I had a sudden need to frequent it.
‘I’m sorry that was so expensive,’ Victoria told me. ‘Here, let me pay you half.’