‘Don’t!’ She shuddered. ‘You don’t really believe I’ve slept with him?’
‘I believe he’d like you to! I’ve seen the way he looks at you, and I believe he has touched you, at least, even if he’s never got you into bed. Don’t try to tell me he doesn’t fancy you.’
‘Maybe he does – but I’ve never slept with him, or come anywhere near it! And as for his mother, it must be terrible to be so unhappy. Can you even imagine what it must have been like for her? To be in love with her husband and find out he was only pretending to love her too? To have to watch him with another woman?’ Laura grimaced. ‘My skin crept when she was talking about that. And she loves her son very much. It’s obvious she’s devoted her life to him. He won’t really throw her out of her home, will he?’
Sebastian’s face was sombre. ‘Can he ever trust her again? What if he married and brought home a wife to take his mother’s place in Ca’ d’Angeli? How long before she had a fatal accident, Laura?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that. She wouldn’t dare risk it, though, now he knows the truth. Would she?’
‘Would you bet on that?’
She didn’t answer. No, she wouldn’t like to risk a bet on it.
Sebastian stroked her hair, her closed eyes, her cheek. ‘You’re very pale. You ought to sleep for a while. Don’t talk any more, don’t even try to think. Where are your pills? The sedatives the doctor gave you?’
He found them for her and gave her two with a glass of water, lay next to her, caressing her until she fell into a doze. Then he slipped away quietly and went down to talk to Sidney, to look at the pink sheets of the schedule for the next day. He kept an eye on the stairs, watching for the Contessa, and another eye on the door into the part of the palazzo where Laura slept. Just before sunset he went back to check on her and found her staring drowsily at nothing, between sleeping and waking.
‘How do you feel now, my love?’ He bent to kiss her face and at that second they both heard a sound, a sharp crack, from outside the window. Gulls flew up, screeching, their white wings crimson in the setting sun.
‘What was that?’ Laura sat up.
‘Sounded like a shot!’ Sebastian ran to the window and looked out.
Laura got out of bed and joined him. What now? she thought desperately. ‘Maybe it was a motor-boat backfiring?’ she said.
A black gondola with gold stripes along the side was moving away from the landing-stage outside Ca’ d’Angeli. It was being poled by Antonio in his black suit.
There was no sign of anything else nearby. Laura sighed with relief. ‘Where’s he going to, I wonder?’ she asked Sebastian who didn’t answer.
A moment later, Niccolo ran out of the house and shouted after the gondola. ‘What was that noise? Where are you going at this hour, Antonio?’
The Contessa sat under the hood of the gondola, her body slumped sideways, head leaning against the side, a few strands of hair blowing in the wintry wind.
‘She’s sitting in an odd way,’ Sebastian said, opening the window to see better.
‘Antonio, come back here!’ shouted Niccolo. ‘Mamma! What are you up to?’
There was no answer from her nor did Antonio look round or register that he had heard Niccolo. He stood in the gondola, poling strongly out into the Grand Canal. There were almost no other vessels in sight, just a vaporetto chugging in the distance, heading towards St Mark’s Square.
Sebastian drew a sudden, audible breath. ‘She looks as if … Do you think she’s asleep? Why is she slumped against the side of the hood like that?’
The gondola tossed on the choppy waves, half-turned, so that, in a shaft of dying sunlight Laura could see the Contessa’s face. The eyes were closed, the skin pale. The body was slack, collapsed. Laura shivered.
‘She looks ill.’
Sebastian gripped the iron latch of the window, his knuckles white. ‘No. She looks as if she’s dead.’
Antonio stopped rowing near the centre of the canal. He bent, for a few minutes, then tossed a large metal can overboard.
‘Oh, my God!’
‘What was it, Sebastian?’
‘A petrol can.’
Antonio sat down beside the Contessa, and put one arm around her waist, drew her head down on to his shoulder, stroked her spilling hair. With his other hand he threw something along the gondola.
Instantly there was a rush, a loud explosion.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Sebastian muttered.
The night sky was lit with a brilliance that dazzled. Sparks flew in all directions, like fireworks. The gondola and its passengers were consumed by crimson and orange flames that climbed up into the darkening sky while the archangels and cherubim watched from the golden walls of Ca’ d’Angeli.
Deep and Silent Waters Page 33