Deep and Silent Waters

by Charlotte Lamb

  Sebastian jumped down into the cabin. He pulled Valerie away and threw her sideways. She fell on the steps, sprawled there, sobbing, then scrambled up without a word and vanished.

  ‘Are you okay? Did she hurt you?’ Sebastian took Laura’s flushed face between his hands. ‘What was all that about?’

  The words tumbled out hoarsely. ‘It was her! She stabbed me! And she’s just tried to strangle me.’ For some reason that sounded funny and Laura began laughing, couldn’t stop. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!’

  He frowned down at her. ‘You’re hysterical. Calm down, Laura. You sound crazy.’

  ‘It’s her who’s crazy, not me. She killed Clea – you must have known that! You were there, you must have seen her push Clea out of the window.’

  His face was totally bloodless. ‘What on earth makes you think she did that?’

  ‘She just admitted it!’

  ‘She can’t have! My God, if I’d even suspected it don’t you think I’d have told the police? I had my back to the window. Clea kept saying she was going to jump and I didn’t believe her. I was sick to the teeth of her threatening suicide. It was a battle of wills all the time, she used every weapon she could think of. There was never any peace. I was so fed up I said, “Jump, go on, do it.” I didn’t believe she would. But she did.’

  ‘No, Valerie pushed her! She admitted it.’

  He shut his eyes. ‘Christ. Once or twice I did wonder… but I couldn’t believe it. Clea screamed “No!” all the way down. I’ve dreamt about it a hundred times. Always felt guilty, wondering if it was all my fault, if I’d somehow made her jump.’ He swallowed convulsively. ‘Valerie really admitted she pushed her?’

  ‘She said you had been lovers.’ She wanted him to deny it, to say it was a lie, but his expression told her that it was true.

  ‘Laura, I was miserable and she was there. But I never loved her, and I never told her I did. I ended it, almost as soon as it started. And I hadn’t met you then.

  ‘She killed Clea because she thought you would marry her if you were free.’

  He went white. ‘Yes. So it was my fault. And you. You might have died the other day. She obviously meant to kill you.’

  Laura’s teeth had begun to chatter. ‘I’m so cold. So cold.’

  ‘Shock,’ she heard him say from a long way off. He picked her up as if she were a baby and wrapped her round in one of the blankets. She shut her eyes as the boat swung round and round. Or was she imagining that?

  The boatman helped him climb out on to the landing stage. There was no sign of Valerie. She must have rushed into the palazzo.

  Laura’s red hair split over Sebastian’s shoulder. He tenderly brushed it back so that he could see her face.

  A shiver ran down his spine. Déjà vu. He had been here before, stood like this before on this spot. A ghost was walking over his grave. Instinctively he looked up, as he had that day thirty years ago.

  He wasn’t surprised to see the Contessa’s face framed in the window, white and fixed, staring as if she, too, was looking at a ghost, as she had looked at him from that very same window thirty years ago.

  He had been a child then watching his mother get into the waiting boat. Now he was a man coming out of a waiting boat, carrying a woman with wind-blown red hair, hair the identical shade and texture his mother’s had been; and behind them rolled the grey waters of the canal, veiled in snow which was just beginning to float down from the cloudy sky.

  Why did life always make patterns? Echoes of past and future clanged in his ears, came between what his eyes saw, and what haunted his mind.

  Another window was flung open with a crash that made him jump.

  ‘Sebastian!’ a voice screamed. ‘I’m going to jump, watch me!’

  He seemed to see Clea looking down at him, climbing on to the sill.

  ‘No! Don’t!’ he yelled.

  ‘I love you!’ she called and jumped.

  Laura was screaming in his arms, fighting to get down.

  Valerie didn’t make another sound. She fell in silence like the soft white snow. Slow motion, he thought, although he knew it wasn’t. His camera eyes followed her, watched the tumble and twist of the body, his mouth open. He didn’t hear the sounds he made, didn’t hear the whine of the wind, the slap of water on the landing-stage.

  She hit the stones with a sound he would never be able to forget. Her head split open as if it had been a watermelon. Blood spurted, the white seeds of brain spreading everywhere. Her eyes were open as if they still saw; had started out of the mess that had been her face, like the eyes of Laura’s doll.

  She must have done that, too, have somehow stolen it from Laura’s bedroom at The Excelsior, smashed it and sent it to her. She must have written those notes, have tried to kill Laura the other day.

  Sebastian had never suspected so much violence had been hidden behind her calm, neat face.

  The film crew crowded out of the palazzo’s open door. Too shocked to make a sound as they stared in horror at the blood and brains on the stones.

  The weight in his arms made Sebastian realise that Laura had fainted. He began to walk towards Ca’d’Angeli, skirting the broken body, not even aware that he was staggering as he walked until Sidney met him and tried to take Laura from him.

  It brought him out of his shock. Arms tightening around her Sebastian muttered, ‘No. I’ll look after her. You deal with that.’ Without looking, he gestured with his head. ‘Don’t touch anything. Don’t let anyone go near it. Just call the police. I’ll put Laura to bed.’ He started to move again then stopped. ‘Sidney. She should see a doctor, would you ring for one?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  For two days after Valerie’s death Laura was sedated. She slept heavily, haunted by dreams from which she woke with horror, sometimes to find Sebastian sitting beside her, watching her with brooding eyes, or Niccolo in the chair by the bed, a pad on his knee, drawing her in charcoal, with quick, light strokes.

  She stared drowsily at him. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Drawing you. Do you mind? You know, you’re just as lovely asleep, you have such great cheekbones. See?’ He held up the sketch. ‘But to bring you alive needs colour, that miracle of red in your hair, your peachy skin, your green eyes. Black and white doesn’t do you justice.’

  Laura yawned, bored by talk of her looks, wishing she dared tell him her dreams: talking about them might drive them away, but her eyelids were too heavy and she fell back into sleep.

  When she got up on the third day the doctor ordered her to stay in her room, sitting by a huge fire, in a Victorian wing armchair, overstuffed with horsehair, piled with cushions, the back of it towards the windows to keep away the draughts. The police came to interview her again, but kept it brief – they had plenty of evidence about Valerie’s suicide. All they wanted to hear from Laura was the truth about what had happened on the boat.

  Captain Bertelli looked horrified when she said she had accused Valerie to her face. ‘You told her you believed it was her who attacked you?’

  ‘Yes. And she—’

  He interrupted, ‘That was a dangerous thing to do, Signorina. She might have tried again.’

  ‘She did. She tried to strangle me, but I kicked her as hard as I could.’

  The policeman stared incredulously at Laura’s delicate face, the frailness of her body, covered by a velvet dressing gown, sunk in the chair, which half swallowed her. His brows climbed almost to his hair.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘We fought,’ Laura admitted, amused by his disbelief. ‘I scratched her face and punched her.’ Bertelli’s expression made her laugh aloud. ‘I did! I looked at her and thought. She tried to kill me! She really tried to kill me! It made me very angry. She wasn’t getting away with it twice. I hit her, and it made me feel good, let me tell you. But then she deliberately went for my shoulder. It was agonising. I screamed. Sebastian was on the landing-stage, he heard me and jumped down into the cabin and pull
ed her off.’

  Now Bertelli was as alert as a cat at a mousehole. ‘Then what did he do?’

  ‘He picked me up and carried me out of the boat.’

  ‘What about Signorina Hyde? What did he do to her? Say to her?’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t remember him saying anything to her. I told you, he pulled her off me and pushed her away. She fell over on the steps of the boat, then she … well, she just vanished. I guess she went into the palazzo.’

  He looked disappointed, thought for a minute, then asked, ‘What do you remember about her jumping out of the window?’

  Sickness welled up in her stomach. She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Do I have to? It was horrible. I don’t like remembering.’

  He insisted, ‘I’m sorry, but we have to get the facts straight.’

  Laura sighed, and gave him a sketchy description of what had happened, not dwelling on what she had seen when Valerie landed.

  ‘After that I don’t remember much until I came to in this room.’ She stared into the leaping flames. ‘She must have been mad, poor woman. I didn’t like her, but I can’t help feeling sorry for her.’

  Bertelli stood up. ‘Thank you for seeing me. We would be grateful if you would come to the station to make a formal statement, as soon as you are fit enough. Please do not leave Venice until after the inquest on Signorina Hyde.’ A human smile came into his eyes. ‘I am glad you are recovering. Being attacked again must have been a terrible shock to you, on top of everything else that has happened.’

  ‘Yes.’ That was the understatement of the year, but it was not what Valerie had done to her that made her feel ill. It was what Valerie had done to herself.

  When he had gone, she stared into the fire, chilly in spite of its heat. Valerie had loved Sebastian. Clea had loved him. Loving Sebastian was dangerous. She shut her eyes. Stop thinking. Let your mind go blank, she told herself, and slowly fell into a light sleep, exhausted by the interview with Bertelli. She didn’t want to dream, but dreams came.

  Her mind buzzed like a wasp’s nest, images stinging her, until she woke up with a gasp and found Niccolo there.

  She was glad to see him sitting on the rug in front of the fire, his long legs bent up, balancing a sketch-pad on his knees, a pencil in his hand now. It moved so quickly, soundless, flowing, as if it grew from the end of his fingers.

  He must have heard the alteration in her breathing because he looked up and smiled into her open eyes. ‘Hi, how are you now?’

  ‘You’re always here,’ she said, not complaining, just commenting.

  ‘I wish I was.’ His lashes drooped, and he looked through them wickedly at her.

  ‘You’re a flirt,’ she told him, and he grinned.

  ‘You look so sad all the time. I’m trying to cheer you up. Should you be sitting so near the fire? Would you like me to move your chair back a little?’

  ‘It’s fine. If it’s too far back I catch the draught from the window or the door. Sebastian and I experimented to find the perfect spot.’

  He dropped his pad and pencil and lay back on the rug, his hands laced at the nape of his neck, gazing up at her. ‘Ah, yes, Sebastian. Always Sebastian.’

  ‘He is my director.’

  ‘And your lover.’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Every time I see you, you’re more beautiful,’ Niccolo said softly.

  She frowned. ‘Don’t. Please.’

  ‘You don’t like compliments?’

  ‘Not much. After all, I’m not responsible for the way I look. I just grew like this. When I was in my teens everyone told me I was ugly, clumsy, awkward, my arms and legs too long, my body too thin. Then suddenly men started telling me I was beautiful – but I hadn’t changed. I looked in the mirror and saw the same girl. I got very confused. And one day I’ll be old and men won’t rush up to tell me how beautiful I am, they’ll look away, thinking, What an ugly old hag, and how will I feel then?’

  ‘No. Never. When you’re ninety you’ll still be lovely. It’s your cheekbones and the way your eyes are set in your head. Your bone structure is ravishing. I may draw your skeleton, leave out all the flesh.’

  She burst out laughing. ‘How gruesome! You have the strangest mind.’

  ‘And you have the most beautiful body.’ He sat up, knelt to take her hand, stretched out the fingers on his palm. ‘Even your hands are a work of art.’

  ‘Thank you, but I was not the artist.’

  ‘No, that was God, the greatest artist of us all.’

  ‘You believe in God?’

  He looked up at her, dark eyes clear. ‘Of course. Don’t you?’

  ‘I used to, but I’m no longer sure.’ She remembered Valerie, broken on the stone terrace in front of Ca’ d’Angeli with the golden archangels staring solemnly down at her.

  Niccolo kissed her fingers one by one. ‘Don’t cry.’

  She only realised she was crying when he said it. Pulling her hands away she found a paper handkerchief and dried her eyes, blew her nose.

  He watched her, concerned. ‘I’m sorry, the last thing I meant to do was upset you. The police talked to me about the woman who killed herself the other day. Is it true that it was her who stabbed you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So she was not your friend.’

  Laura laughed feverishly. ‘That’s a charming way of putting it. She hated me.’

  ‘She was crazy, obviously.’

  ‘She was very sick.’

  ‘Then you must not be sad. She couldn’t have been happy. Maybe now she’s dead she’s happier.’

  She gave him a dry glance. ‘Somehow I don’t find that very comforting.’

  They were both silent, then he said, ‘When the inquest is over, you will go home to England?’

  ‘Yes, as soon as I’ve finished filming a couple of scenes for Sebastian. I haven’t done any work since I got here and it’s essential that I shoot the scenes I was scheduled for.’

  ‘Please, come back to Ca’ d’Angeli in the summer. I wouldn’t want you to have only bad memories of my house, and I’d like to show you more of Venice.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but—’

  ‘Also I still want you to pose for me as the female David. I’ve made a number of sketches from the photos I took and I’m eager to start work – but I need you, I can’t work exclusively from photos. I need to touch, you see, to feel the dimensions of what I’m working on.’ He flexed his hands, the strong, tanned fingers eloquent, knelt up and framed her face, holding and touching, caressing all at once.

  The hair on the back of Laura’s neck bristled. Someone was watching. She felt it, as she had felt it once before. She looked up instantly, and saw the glassy, gleaming eye in the ceiling staring back at her.

  A scream broke out of her and a second later the human eye was gone, replaced by the flat, painted one.

  ‘Dio!’ Niccolo was so startled he lapsed into Italian, talking fast, looking anxiously at her.

  She didn’t understand a word. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Why did you scream like that? I wouldn’t hurt you – I’d never hurt you.’

  The door was flung open. Laura looked across the room as Sebastian rushed in. She was both relieved and alarmed to see him.

  ‘What’s going on in here?’ It wasn’t a question so much as a threat. ‘What did he do to you?’ He moved fast towards them and Niccolo stood up, squaring his shoulders as if ready for a fight.

  ‘I didn’t do anything to her!’

  ‘He didn’t,’ Laura said. ‘I saw it again – the eye.’ She pointed. ‘Up there.’

  Sebastian’s hard mouth indented; his eyes spat jealousy. ‘I wonder what you were feeling guilty about this time.’

  ‘I wasn’t feeling guilty about anything! I tell you, I saw it.’

  ‘Oh, come off it! You didn’t see anything up there. You just imagined it!’

  Niccolo was looking up at the painted ceiling. ‘No,’ he said slowly, seriously. ‘No, I
don’t think she did. Laura, was it Juno’s eye?’

  Sebastian and Laura stared at him.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘And you saw a living eye watching you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Laura drew a sharp breath. ‘I didn’t imagine it, did I?’

  Niccolo turned on his heel, and walked out of the room without answering. Sebastian followed him. Laura hesitated for a minute, but she wasn’t staying there alone. She went after them, shivering a little as she turned into the marble-walled hall. The two men were on the stairs going up to the second floor and vanished round a bend in the staircase.

  The film crew, still busy in the hallway, had stopped to watch curiously: an electrician with black cable wound round his hand, Sidney polishing a lens of one of his cameras, looking older since Valerie’s death as if the shock had aged him, Carmen sitting cross-legged on a rug with a pile of shooting scripts in front of her, going through them and scribbling timings in the margins.

  Laura wished she was just one of them, lost in the daily minutiae of their lives, doing her job, worrying about nothing except getting her work right.

  She waved to them and Sidney called, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, but his eyes told her she didn’t look it. She walked slowly to the stairs and followed the men up to the second floor, leaning heavily on the banisters.

  By the time she reached the top they were out of sight but she heard voices and followed the sound along a corridor into a large bedchamber, hung with red velvet at the window and on the four-poster bed. The walls were painted dark red, too. The black shadows from the flames in the hearth licked up to the ceiling and made the atmosphere heavy with brooding. The Contessa, wearing her usual black dress, sat at an embroidery frame, sewing with the calm, measured movements of custom.

  She put down her needle and the skein of silk she was pulling through the cream fabric. ‘What are you doing, Niccolo?’ she asked sharply.

  He had flapped back the carpet on the floor and was kneeling down. Taking no notice of his mother, he told Sebastian, who stood beside him, ‘This is the mechanism. It’s very old, probably from the Renaissance – who knows who ordered it to be installed? It was the sort of thing that fascinated them in the sixteenth century. I found this one years ago, when I was about four and crawling about in here while the maid cleaned the silver brushes on my mother’s dressing table.’