by David Hewson
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Me neither, she thought. But she told him anyway.
Then she gave the shopping to the carnival couple next to her, a courtly Renaissance prince and his bride, and dragged the young Englishman down towards the arcades.
They were in the square near Il Gobbo. It was seven thirty. The damp dark sky was soaking up the dying sonorous peals of the nearby bells.
The same ones she’d heard when he called her. Or so she thought. Was that all they had? The sound of bells, relayed through a mobile phone? A couple of names, Schütze and L’Arciere, that meant nothing?
She didn’t push Jason over Sofia. After she told him about Camilla, it didn’t seem necessary.
He was animated, not scared, not quite. He looked at the dark passages around them and said, ‘Where do we start?’
She turned to the bar behind them and said simply, ‘Here.’
Because this was where it all began. Where it started to go wrong.
They began to work the bars, with no more success than before. The names prompted bewilderment, as did the idea of a mask and costume store that was closed during carnival.
Twenty minutes later they were no nearer to an answer. Ruskin’s deadline was almost up.
Jason stopped her after the fourth or fifth place they’d visited.
‘We need the police,’ he said.
‘He’ll see them, Jason,’ Teresa told him. ‘Trust me. I know how these things work. The police will hold us back. Just a little more time.’
‘Do we have that? Does Camilla?’
‘He’s here somewhere. I think I know this man. Or understand him a little anyway. He likes tricks and disguises. But he’s rigid, obsessive, fixed in his thinking too. He has rules. If we break those – and from what he said he’d think that the moment he sees a uniform – then he’s free to do what he wants.’
‘If he harms one hair on her head . . .’
‘I know.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘If you’d told me about Sofia . . .’
‘I couldn’t!’ he protested.
They were in the piazza in front of the famous parmesan shop. Jason’s loud voice was starting to attract attention.
‘She told me not to. I promised.’
And a promise is a promise, she thought. Always would be for Jason Cunningham.
His eyes darted away into the alleys running past the market, alongside the canal.
‘L’Arciere,’ she murmured. ‘Schütze. There has to be something.’
‘What does L’Arciere mean?’ he asked.
‘I thought your Italian was better than that.’
‘I can talk everyday stuff.’
‘It means . . .’ She pulled back her arm and mimicked the drawing and release of a bow. ‘That.’
He looked at her and said, in English, ‘An archer.’
‘Yes. He used that name too. It was on one of the passports.’
Jason frowned and at that moment he seemed almost like a schoolchild.
‘He used the same name twice? Seems a bit odd.’
‘Not the same name. Different languages.’
Jason looked at her as if she were being slow.
Of course it was the same. There was a pattern here and she was supposed to be good at seeing those.
Silvio Di Capua was at his desk.
‘Busy right now,’ her deputy said. ‘Working with those nice people in Venice on your behalf. I think––’
‘Shut up, Silvio,’ she ordered. ‘German dictionary. What does that name I gave you mean? Schütze?’
‘Mean?’
‘Is it just a surname?’
She waited, knowing all along what he’d say.
‘Bowman,’ Di Capua came back. ‘Rifleman. Archer. Marksman.’
‘Fine. Listen to me. He uses variations of the word archer a lot. Let’s try different languages. Check for a company in Venice that might have the same name.’
‘How long have I got?’ he asked, quite calmly in the circumstances.
‘I need this now. Pick the main ones. Spanish. Dutch. Greek. I don’t know.’
‘Greek’s a different alphabet,’ he pointed out.
‘There, you’re narrowing it down already. Go into any business or trade directory you can find and see if there’s a company anywhere in Venice with a registered name that matches.’ Then she remembered what Strozzi had said. ‘It may be just the company. Not the one on the shop.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ he muttered.
‘Unless you have something better to do . . .’
‘Lots,’ Silvio Di Capua grunted. ‘I’m sorry. If you want this it’s going to take a couple of hours.’
‘In a couple of hours she’ll be dead. Five minutes maybe.’
He didn’t say anything. Jason was staring at her. This was all going wrong. What she was demanding was unreasonable, impossible.
The archer.
She thought of Saint-Germain and their unreal conversations on the distant Island of the Dead. There was a third answer, he said. Had to be. It lay in a distant place she never visited, beyond the comfortable, organized world she preferred. Somewhere illogical, irrational.
Teresa Lupo closed her eyes and tried to find a private, silent space inside her, somewhere the dope fumes of the Rialto night didn’t intrude, a sanctuary where she couldn’t hear the disco music and the slurred, drunken voices chattering over spritz, the rumble of the vaporetti from the Grand Canal, the occasional shout of the gondoliers.
‘The only world I know is the one I can see,’ she murmured, aware of her inner desperation, aware too that Jason was growing ever more restless beside her.
‘What happens if we can’t find him?’ he asked.
He kills Camilla, she thought. Because I failed him. I didn’t pass the test. He kills Camilla because she’s one more proxy victim, like Fiorella Gabrielli. And then he’s gone.
‘There’s an answer here,’ she muttered, more to herself than him. ‘It’s just . . . beyond me.’
‘It can’t be,’ Jason Cunningham said abruptly. ‘There’s no one else, is there? Someone’s sending you those stories for a reason. It has to be you. Think about it. Think about what you know.’
What I know.
This is a game. One more riddle with masks. The peals of the Rialto bells down the phone weren’t accidental. He was teasing her, taunting her.
There was something he said too.
If you want to know how to find me, ask Sofia. Tell her to give you a sign.
Her head felt fuzzy, disorganized, foreign.
A memory rose in her mind, prompted by the photograph she’d seen only that evening, of Sofia sullen and difficult, like an angry child, at the Lido, on the beach.
Teresa could remember another time, sitting with her in the park near the Colosseum one summer day, Sofia shuffling her fortune-telling cards in the sun.
It was the first thing she did with everyone if she could. A little ritual. A harmless game that meant nothing at all.
A sign.
Teresa didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Horoscopes. Astrology. Saint-Germain would have been proud. The answer might be something she had always regarded as absurd, a foolish little game.
The painting on Ruskin’s door was a centaur bearing a bow.
Di Capua was still on the line.
‘Silvio?’
‘I’m trying. I’m typing as fast as I can.’
‘See if there’s somewhere called Sagittario. Or the English, Sagittarius.’
‘Any reason why?’
‘Because I’m clutching at straws. Because Sagittarius is also known as the Archer. More than anything because I think he may have told me so himself.’
‘In that case he’s either deeply stupid or astonishingly arrogant. Or both,’ Di Capua muttered. She waited. Ten long seconds, no more. Then he said, ‘Got it.’
The phone beeped again. She looked. It was an address and a map.
Close by. An alley off the Rialto arcades.
‘Last known operating premises for an Impresa Individuale, a sole proprietor, called Sagittarius,’ Di Capua said. ‘Formation fifteen years ago. No idea if that’s current or not. There’s nothing else in that name. Nothing close. If you want––’
‘Thank you,’ she interrupted.
There was a deep sigh on the line then he said, ‘I have to ask. Can I give this to the Questura? They’ll scream if I don’t.’
‘Only if they find out,’ she told him. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘May I know why?’
‘Because I need to make sure I’m right. This could just be some trick. What if I turn up with a bunch of cops and he’s somewhere else, watching?’
‘Point taken. But if I don’t hear from you in ten minutes I’m calling them anyway.’
The line went dead.
That’s what happens when you let them off the leash, she thought. They get unruly.
The nearby bells struck eight.
‘Can we go now?’ Jason demanded.
She checked the little map on the phone, and led the way back into the gloom of the arcades.
It was a maze, a warren of narrow, grubby alleys that fed off the main route from the bridge and wound in a tangled network behind the bank of the Riva del Vin. There were no lights here, no people once they passed the handful of bars and restaurants at the edge.
Jason looked twitchy. He was a tall kid, lanky more than muscular, and he kept nervously swishing at his long fair hair.
Not much good in a fight, she thought, and found her mind ranging again to Peroni and the rest of them. What would they be doing if they were here now?
Looking. Imagining. Trying to see in the dark. Checking their weapons.
Some of these lanes were so narrow two people couldn’t walk down them side by side. The web map simply placed a large red blob over an area that encompassed at least three alleys, obscuring them all. There were no names, only numbers.
They turned into a short, bleak cul-de-sac littered with rubbish: paper and rotten fruit, abandoned market boxes, plastic bags of refuse. The stench of cats was everywhere.
Jason put a hand on her shoulder and asked, ‘What do we do when we get there?’
She tried to smile.
‘I’m a pathologist. You’re a baker.’ She watched him. ‘When I’m sure we call in the cops. They won’t be long behind.’
The alley was so dark she could only just make out what lay at the foot. A blind wall at the end, a derelict store, shuttered and dirty, on the left. On the right some kind of commercial storefront with a single glass door and two display windows dimly lit.
Teresa stopped and scanned the brickwork along the sides, remembering what she’d found in Dorsoduro. The glass eye of the camera glittered in the dark like a tiny jewel, set above the shop. She signalled to Jason to stay back then walked ahead.
The front shutter was raised. There was a light behind it. Over the plate glass windows she could just make out a sign: Sagittarius, Costumier.
There was a cough from behind. Jason was getting impatient. She waved at him to stay back. Then she edged towards the door, keeping tight to the side.
One glimpse through the nearest display window was enough.
Teresa turned and walked back to Jason. The camera followed her then reached the edge of its range and stopped. She dodged into a patch of darkness in the doorway of the building by the arcade, took out her phone and called Di Capua.
‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘Call Paola Boscolo and tell her to send me everyone she’s got.’
‘Wait there,’ Di Capua ordered. ‘I’ll tell you what they say.’
She could picture him dialling up the Castello Questura as they spoke. That was Silvio. Never do one thing at a time.
‘Sorry.’
‘Oh please. Don’t pull any stupid––’
Teresa Lupo clamped her phone shut and put it away. She knew what she’d seen.
‘I think that door’s open, Jason.’
‘Why would he do that?’
Questions.
‘Because . . . he wants me there. He thinks I know where Sofia is and maybe if I find him first . . .’ She tried to see the logic, failed. ‘Perhaps it’ll be easier for him. I don’t know. Does it matter?’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Unless he’s seen you – which I doubt – he thinks I’m on my own. You work out the best way to use that. Because truthfully I can’t.’
She started to move. His hand came to her arm. She looked at him. Perhaps Jason Cunningham was a touch more solid than he appeared.
‘Why don’t we just wait for the police?’ he asked.
‘Because we daren’t,’ she said, then shook him off and strode back to the open door.
It was ajar and she didn’t want to think why. Teresa walked straight in, made no effort to hide. She’d only glimpsed Camilla when she peeked through the side window. Now she saw her fully and was chilled by the sight.
She was standing on a plain wooden chair, a noose around her neck, still blindfolded, hands tied behind her back. He’d replaced the gag. Teresa guessed he’d worked the scarlet lipstick over the rag and her cheeks afresh. Her face looked like an open wound.
The heavy hessian rope ran from her bloodless throat tight to an ancient, rusty hook in a ceiling beam. This building was old. A warehouse, perhaps, centuries ago. There had to be so many places like this hidden away in the warren of dead-end alleys that ran off from the Rialto. Somewhere to store things, to hide them. Contraband. People.
Camilla wore the pure white carnival dress she’d seen on the phone, that of a princess maybe. On the back of her head, crooked, askew, was a gaudy silver crown. The girl trembled as she stood there, the rope taut around her neck.
It was impossible she’d been in this position for more than a few minutes. The man put on this act when he saw someone on the camera. The girl was a lure, nothing more. Any longer than that and she would have fallen. Hanged herself.
Teresa reached into her pocket and took out Sofia’s kitchen knife, the one she’d found when she decided to enter the top apartment.
Camilla heard her, let go a low, scared whimper.
‘It’s me,’ she said in a loud firm voice. ‘Teresa.’
The slender figure in white shook on the chair.
‘Stand still,’ Teresa told her. ‘I’ll get you down. This is all going to be fine. The police are on their way.’
She glanced around the room. No one. No sound from anywhere. There were stairs leading off to an upper level. A door at the back with a glass panel. It seemed to run into a dark narrow alleyway. A hidden way out.
He had to have that.
Teresa found a chair near the rear door, pulled it close, stood on it and severed the rope round Camilla’s neck. Then she cut the ties around her wrists and the back of the blindfold, loosening the gap enough so that she could drag it off the top of the girl’s head, taking the cheap plastic crown with it.
Camilla blinked at the sudden light, looked at her, sobbing, terrified, eyes rolling. The scarlet lipstick smeared against Teresa’s cheeks as they embraced. The chairs shook perilously beneath them as she got down, held up her hands, helped the young woman to the floor.
Shaking like a leaf, Camilla cowered in her arms as Teresa looked around the room, wondering, listening.
Glittering gowns and masks. Costumes and the kind of cheap, garish accessories one expected of the theatre – jewellery and maces, swords and lances, medallions and chains and other finery.
And mannequins. An army of dummies dressed as carnival and Commedia dell’Arte characters. Covered in dust, like long-abandoned corpses. No one came here much to buy. That wasn’t the purpose. It was one hiding place among many, a private, insane world where he could retire to dream, to imagine.
Something Falcone had once told her came back. He said that on occasion the insane were marked not by their unpredictability but throu
gh some inner, unshakeable logic that was imperceptible to the rest of the world. That the key to understanding them lay in penetrating and adopting their viewpoint, not labelling it, sorting it into some neat, tidy category of illness, assuming that madness meant chaos, a pointless scream in the dark.
These were the most difficult people to apprehend because they were, in so many ways, like everybody else. Rational, cold, determined, yet invisibly attuned to a perspective that few could penetrate.
She was still thinking about that when one of the mannequins, a tall figure, with a cocked head and a black, shiny, leering mask, began to move. He wore the costume of the harlequin, coloured silk diamonds, red and yellow and green, and his gestures were exaggerated and theatrical.
When he stepped out from the shadows at the rear of the store she saw that he carried in his hand a long and gleaming sword, much like the weapon from the night before.
‘Good evening,’ the harlequin said, and cut through the air with the heavy, glittering blade. ‘May I be of assistance?’
He looked strong and accustomed to being in control.
Teresa took one step forward and stood in front of Camilla.
‘Sorry,’ she said, watching him. ‘I lied.’
The mask went to one side. She was reminded of the Plague Doctor and that birdlike pose.
‘I don’t know where Sofia is. I never have. This game of yours . . .’
He jerked back his head and spat a stream of curses through the cruel black mask.
Then, ‘Game? Game?’
Camilla was fully behind her now. Teresa had stood up to this man once. She’d do it again if necessary. She glanced at the door.
Jason was there, creeping in, pressed against the glass.
The harlequin flung back his arm and swung his sword through the air. Sharp metal met with the neck of a stiff female mannequin next to him, slashed at the dummy’s rich cream dress and high silver wig. The head came off, flew through the air, rattled against the side wall.
He stayed in the same position, blade raised, waiting.
Teresa folded her arms, sighed and said, ‘This is all well and good. But I still don’t know where she is. Honestly. If you only . . .’
Two steps forward, sword flashing. The many-coloured diamonds were a blur in front of her. Then something intervened and it was Jason, screaming, yelling, flailing around. In his hands he held a tall brass ashtray that had stood near the door, brandishing it like a mace.