by David Hewson
The market closed well before one o’clock leaving the afternoon to straggling lines of visitors. At night the Rialto changed once more. She had never come to this area much before after dark, except to visit one of the popular restaurants by the waterfront on the Riva del Vin. As she crossed the bridge she found herself walking beneath lines of bright blue snowflake lights strung above the pavement, descending past the souvenir stalls, most of them closed, their wares being carted away by intent, muscular men heaving trolleys up and down steps, the porters who kept this strange city moving, lugging goods everywhere, regardless of bridges and the hordes of pedestrians ahead of them.
Some kind of festive event had clearly taken place earlier. Musicians in garish costumes carrying a variety of instruments – horns, drums, a glockenspiel – wandered back towards the vaporetto jetty. Crowds of costumed carnival-goers meandered through the arcades as if lost for where to wander next.
Teresa followed Tosi’s instructions and bore right, away from the lights and the people, into the pools of darkness and the small piazzas where the market stalls set up during the day. She could still smell the sweet aroma of fruit and behind it the sharp salt smack of fresh fish. Rounding the blocky hulking shape of the church of San Giacomo she stopped and stood in front of its low, simple loggia, trying to get her bearings, which was never easy at the best of times, even during the day.
Ahead of her, across a patterned pavement of cobblestones with a low fountain in the centre, was a half-lit open space surrounded on three sides by arcades. To her left ran a line of low kiosks still lit by a handful of open tourist stands. On her right the taller buildings were occupied by what appeared to be a few restaurants.
She was in the right place but could see very little indeed except a moving procession of dark shapes, most of them in costume, crisscrossing the area beneath the shelter of the arcades.
The snow was starting to get heavier. From beyond an archway in the far corner of the piazza she could just make out flashing strobes, like multi-coloured lightning. She heard the low rumbling thud of dance music and remembered something from her teenage days: a disco in San Giovanni in Rome, Sofia leading her into this forbidden place, buying her a drink, trying to teach her to dance, not that this was ever going to be possible.
The music became louder. She closed her eyes and could see her aunt in this place, wandering it easily, comfortably, attracted by the promise of anonymous pleasure.
A group of young men and women, masked and in the costume of palace courtiers, walked by, one accidentally brushing her shoulder and apologizing immediately in French. She felt like a stranger in a different country. Rome had its darker corners. But none quite like this. The cold was biting. Swirling loose clouds of snow were starting to dash in and out of the ancient stone and brick colonnades. In a city that often appeared to go to sleep well before nine of an evening, the night was just beginning for those hidden behind the disguise of the carnival, masks frozen in expressions that seemed cruel and inhuman, incapable of any emotion except disdain.
As she crossed the piazza she could see crowds of revellers gathered beneath the galleries and in the open space beyond the archway, huddled together, chatting, dancing, flirting, she guessed.
Sofia . . .
A tall figure stepped out of the gloom ahead and caught her attention. Alberto Tosi wore what looked like a thicker overcoat and one more old-fashioned gentleman’s hat. She walked over to join him. In each of his gloved hands was a plastic glass of liquid with an olive on a long cocktail stick. She could just make out the colour in the light leaking from behind him: bright red.
‘Spritz!’ Tosi declared. ‘Here.’
This was all so ridiculous. She wanted to laugh and so eventually she did, and took the glass, and a sip from it. The Venetian drink: Campari bitter, prosecco, soda water, olive and a chunk of lemon. The strangest combination, and one that never made any sense unless it was consumed here, in the sharp marine air of the city, the briny fragrance of the sea mingling with the mould and decay of buildings that teetered on a hidden forest of timber buried deep beneath their feet in the mud of the lagoon.
‘The police––’ she began.
‘To hell with the police!’ Tosi interrupted.
She smiled at him and wondered whether this was his first spritz of the evening.
‘I spoke with the commissario,’ he went on. ‘I’m sorry. They won’t spend much time on Sofia’s case at the moment. Not with that dreadful incident in the piazza to clear up. And all these people in the city. Venice is full. The pickpockets and the criminals have come from all over, from beyond Italy even, for such rich pickings. Until they go home a missing person . . . even the aunt of a famous Roman pathologist . . . I’m sorry.’
‘No need, Alberto.’
‘But there is a need! Your aunt is more important than all this . . .’ His long arms waved around him, pointing, eventually, at the mingling crowd in the adjoining piazza. Some women in thick winter parkas were beginning to dance to the music. It was an incongruous, scarcely believable scene. ‘All this nonsense. We never used to have it, you know. Carnival was a local affair, for the Venetians. Then the city saw the glint of money . . .’ He rubbed the fingers of his black leather gloves in a familiar gesture. ‘And look at it now. People dancing in the street. In February. I ask you.’
‘That’s probably what it was like,’ she suggested. ‘In the old days.’
‘In the old days we used to string people up on those columns by the Doge’s Palace and leave them there to rot. People forget that. Your Gobbo fellow knows. Why not ask him?’
She took another drink, sighed and waited.
Tosi moved to one side and she realized he was leaning against a set of iron railings that guarded a low statue of a crouching man, hewn out of what looked like grimy marble, head bowed, muscles straining as if in pain, bearing on his back and neck a heavy flat platform engraved with an obscure inscription in Latin.
‘In the old days,’ Tosi went on, ‘a pompous city official used to climb up there and read out the odd death sentence from time to time. Or some poor soul was forced to strip naked in the Piazza San Marco and run the gauntlet of the crowds all the way here, until he managed to touch this chap.’
The bent back, the pained, contorted posture, face unseen, pointed to the ground.
‘Gobbo,’ she said.
‘Il Gobbo,’ Tosi emphasized. ‘One must never miss grammatical detail. The definitive article is what gives it away, I think. Why use it if this was someone’s last name? And if it were some kind of sobriquet . . .’ He scowled. ‘No one would call another human being something so cruel. Not in this day and age. I should have seen the connection straight away.’
He reached over the railings and patted the hard surface of the platform above the pained figure of the naked man.
‘He’s a local celebrity. The trouble is there’s so much history in Venice one scarcely thinks about it for a while. I mentioned our problem to my granddaughter and she told me immediately. It’s what the young say to one another when they’re coming here. Meet you at Il Gobbo. Shorthand I imagine for a night out in the cold having what passes for fun these days.’
Teresa looked at the crippled statue, a stark, contorted monochrome figure in the tenebrous piazza, thought about the faceless people around them. The certainty that had been growing inside her since the moment she stepped into this part of the city, an underworld she never knew existed, finally fell into place.
This was where, before her disappearance, Sofia came for the evening.
To do what?
The same thing she did wherever she was, probably, the routine lonely people like her always fell into. To wander, to drink and mingle, looking for company among strangers, not caring that most were half her age.
‘You’re quite the detective,’ Teresa Lupo said, with no small degree of genuine admiration.
‘Time on my hands.’ He tapped his head. ‘And not enough work for this atrophied o
rgan.’
‘Sofia came here night after night,’ she said. ‘She would have talked to people. She always did.’
He chinked his glass against hers. The plastic made no sound.
‘Then so should we,’ Tosi said.
There was a sudden, deafening burst of music from the sound system round the corner.
‘If anyone,’ the old man added, ‘can possibly hear.’
They started at the nearest bar, little more than a small compartment built into the arcade. Tosi bought another round of unwanted drinks – it seemed the best way of getting the busy woman behind the counter to give them a little of her attention. Then Teresa showed her the old photo and asked a few questions.
She was from Croatia, like Camilla. Venice appeared more an international city than an Italian one, hereabouts anyway. A couple of local men came over and stared at the photograph. They seemed interested.
‘Sofia,’ Teresa said. ‘Her name’s Sofia.’
The woman’s eyes lit up. The men nodded.
‘She comes from Rome?’ one of them asked.
‘Originally.’
‘She was here.’ He looked at his friends. They agreed. ‘Nice woman. We talked to her.’
‘About what?’
He shrugged.
‘Whatever. Music. Food. Jobs.’
The woman behind the counter cut in, ‘She was looking for work. A little . . .’ She frowned, and looked a touch guilty. ‘A little old for round here to be honest with you. Not that it bothered her. Where is she? I haven’t seen her for . . . I dunno.’
The men looked at each other. They didn’t seem to have a clue either.
‘Who was she with?’ Teresa asked. ‘Friends?’
‘On her own,’ the woman insisted. ‘Always, I think.’
The talkative man thought about this and said, ‘I don’t remember her with anyone. She just came for the company.’ He looked at his companions and laughed. ‘Must have been desperate.’
‘And then?’
He grimaced, glancing round the corner, in the direction of the piazza with the music and the flashing lights.
‘Then she went to the next place,’ he said. ‘Like we all do.’
He reached up and patted the Croatian woman on the arm.
‘Unfaithful. That’s how it goes.’
Wandering from one little bar to the next. Talking to lonely people like herself. The idea this kind of behaviour might be dangerous would never have occurred to her.
‘This is important,’ Teresa said. ‘She’s my aunt. She’s missing. When did you last see her? Please. Try and remember.’
She waited, watching their faces, knowing this was pointless. In these cold, bleak arcades in the midst of the Rialto markets time no longer mattered. One night was much the same as any other.
‘A week,’ the Croatian woman said.
‘Ten days,’ the man added.
‘Thanks.’
She must have sounded despondent. He looked sorry that he couldn’t help more. As they were leaving he stopped her and said, ‘Try the place round the corner. The one next to the Casa del Parmigiano. That’s nice. It’s a bit smarter than this. I saw her there sometimes.’
He thought for a moment.
‘She talked to lots of people. A nice lady. You go find her.’
They went there straight away. The young Italian man behind the counter was doling out spritz and cocktails to a steady stream of people who came to stand outside. Tosi bought two more drinks they didn’t touch. It wasn’t easy to hear. The disco, with its flashing lights and deafening music, was just across the square, surrounded by costumed figures in masks, swaying and jogging, drinking, pulling on cigarettes. There was the strong, insistent smell of dope from a couple dancing uncertainly close by.
Sofia smoked, tobacco only as far as Teresa knew. She’d hated the fact she couldn’t light up inside a café or bar or restaurant in Italy any more. This place would have appealed to her.
‘What?’ the barman asked over the noise.
She showed him the photo.
‘Sofia,’ he said before she’d even mentioned the name. ‘Sure, I know her.’
Same question. Same vague answer. It was a week or more since she’d been seen here.
‘Did she come with anyone?’ she asked.
He thought for a moment and said, ‘Oh yeah. The last couple of nights she was here. I remember now.’
‘Who?’
Alberto Tosi crowded in close to hear the man’s answer.
‘Him,’ the barman said, pointing at the crowd.
Desperate, excited, a little scared, Teresa turned and scanned the dark figures in the centre of the piazza.
‘And him,’ the barman added. ‘And him. Oh . . . and him.’
Funny man, she thought. Tosi’s gazed ranged across the people in the piazza. Then he worked it out and threw some abuse at the barman.
‘This woman is missing,’ the old pathologist barked at him. ‘Don’t play games with us.’
‘It’s not a joke,’ the barman retorted. ‘You asked. I told you. I didn’t get it either. I mean, you see people wearing masks here all year round. Not just carnival. Tourists mainly though. Not locals and I guess she was local, wasn’t she?’
‘The man,’ Teresa persisted.
‘Some guy in a cloak and a mask. Always that one. Sometimes she’d have a mask too. No costume. Just a mask. Not easy . . .’
He made the motion of removing the face mask and taking a drink.
‘Not if you want to get a few down. And they did. Trust me.’
‘What did he look like when he took off his mask?’ she asked.
‘Nothing special. Just some guy.’
‘Italian? Foreign? Young? Old?’
‘Old. Never heard him talk much. Kept his mask on mostly. Are you police?’
‘If only . . .’ Teresa murmured. ‘Does the name Jerome Aitchison ring a bell?’
He shook his head. Then he thought for a second and added, ‘I remember one thing though. Last time she was asking where they could get a gondola.’ He laughed. ‘A gondola? Jesus. At two in the morning.’
‘And you’ve never seen him before or since? You’ve no idea who he is?’ Teresa demanded.
‘I told you.’
He pointed again. There were five of them now in the crowd nearby, probably plenty more if she wanted to look.
‘They call him the Plague Doctor.’
Il Medico della Peste. The same deathly archetypal figure who had greeted Teresa and her mother at the Zattere vaporetto stop the day before, helping them onto the icy jetty. Which had to be coincidence. There were so many people dressed like that in the city during carnival. The same costume Aitchison wore when he shot at Luisa Cammarota then killed himself. That was no accident.
She took Tosi by the arm and led him away from the noise. Then she asked, ‘Where would you get a gondola around here?’
‘At this time of night? I’ve no idea. Perhaps . . .’ He glanced back at the bodies moving to the music in the piazza. ‘There could be a gondolier here. In this sort of place if you ask for something and you have the money . . .’
‘But why, Alberto? Why would Sofia do such a thing? With a stranger here, in the dead of night?’
‘If he was a stranger. They’d been here more than once. How do you know?’
I don’t, she thought. I haven’t a clue.
‘I’ll tell you one thing, though,’ Tosi added. ‘This man she went off with. He surely wasn’t a Venetian. Not unless he had an ulterior motive. The gondola is a device for extracting money from visitors. No local would pay to go in one. Except for love, for a wedding perhaps, not that anyone gets married at two in the morning. Not even in the Rialto.’
‘Where . . .?’ she began.
He took her by the arm and led her away from the piazza. Very soon the music had diminished. They were standing by the Grand Canal looking up at the Rialto Bridge from the deserted pavement of the markets next to a small pri
vate jetty. A set of upright poles stood like tree trunks set in the water, waving gently with its eddying flow. Between the timbers stood several black gondolas, shiny beneath the moonlight, their seats covered tightly in blue fabric to protect against the vile weather. A light dusting of snow had built up already. More, she felt, was on the way.
There wasn’t a soul in sight. Then a voice came out from behind the arcades, a lilting tone to it, almost singing the words one heard everywhere in Venice that tourists and water were to be found.
‘Gondola, gondola, gondola . . .’
A tall man in a thick hooped sweater and straw hat with a ribbon round it wandered out from the shadows.
He stumbled up to them and smiled. A burst of spritz filled the air from his breath. He must have been freezing, she thought.
‘Fifteen minutes, a hundred euros,’ he said, slurring the words a little. ‘There’s nothing like the Grand Canal at this time of night. No boats, no people, no noise. Just you and the water and the gentle sound of my remo in the forcola.’ He made a suggestive turning, thrusting gesture, that of an oar in the rowlock, and something more physical, more human too. ‘What you get up to in the back . . .’ He sniggered and looked them up and down. ‘That’s up to you.’
Tosi let fly with a loud and unmistakably vicious burst of abuse, in Veneto she guessed since she could barely understand a single word.
The gondolier stood there and finally shivered a little, downcast, perhaps even ashamed.
‘The photo,’ Tosi ordered.
She got it out. There was another rapid exchange between the two Venetians. Then the gondolier nodded and said, ‘Seen her.’
‘When?’ Tosi demanded.
‘Week ago maybe. You think I keep a diary?’
‘Where?’ Teresa asked.
‘Here.’
‘I meant where to?’
He laughed.
‘How far do you think I can go like this?’ He nodded at the black, shimmering surface of the canal and the landing by the bridge on the other side. ‘Just from here to there. Slowly, how they wanted. Then they were gone. Don’t ask me where.’