The Venice Conspiracy (37 page)

It’s a six.

Or is he clutching at straws? Making things up. Imagining the proverbial mark of the beast.

He grabs his jacket and decides to go straight to Carabinieri HQ. Even if he’s got it wrong, it’s best to tell Vito and Valentina. Sooner rather than later.

As he walks, he
wonders if it’s possible that Bale and Teale could know each other. They’re both American, but she’s much younger than him. Of course, Venice is full of Americans, so it could just be coincidence. And what of the tattoo? Is a teardrop as common as a peace sign or a smiley face? Or is it a modern-day Satanic gang marking? Maybe there are two other teardrops on her body somewhere, making three sixes in all. He’s been around so many gangs in LA and seen so many cult tats that he appreciates the power invested in symbolically marking your body to show your beliefs, your true colours.

Tom heads east down the Ponte Tre Pont, south-east down the Fondamenta del Gafaro before finding some narrower and quicker backstreets to take him towards the Carabinieri buildings on the northern side of the Ponte di Rialto. He’s somewhere close to the Campo dei Frari when a man in a red tee and jet-black jeans looks directly at him and smiles. Tom is still wondering whether he knows him when the stranger lifts his right arm like he’s about to look at his watch.

It feels like water’s been sprayed in his face.

Then comes the burning.

Pepper spray!

Tom puts his hands to his face just in time to stop another burst of spray.

He wheels around in the burning blindness.

Feels a sharp jab in his neck.

A hypodermic.

He rocks on his feet, feels a tingling queasiness spread through his veins and then crashes painfully like a toppled tree.

Through a stinging, painful fog Tom hears them jabbering in Italian.

His eyes are burning from the OC –
Oleorisin capsicum
. Now he feels a different kind of spray in his face. Lagoon water. He’s on a boat, moving somewhere.

‘
Attenzione!
’ someone shouts.

He’s awake – and they’re aware he’s awake. Before Tom can shut his eyes and
feign unconsciousness, someone covers him again in pepper spray. The burn barely has time to hit home before another needle finds a river of blood in his neck. His limbs turn to jelly and he floats off again on a queasy sea of blackness.

He doesn’t stir until they lift him from the boat.

The first thing he notices is that the air has changed. It’s less fresh. Much cooler. Almost damp.

He thinks he’s inside.

Clear male voices talk around him in hushed tones. Tom can feel the heat and closeness of their bodies. He can’t see them, but he imagines them peering down and talking about him.

Sensation is slowly returning to his limbs. Pain prickles his eyes again. He knows how much trouble he is in.

Both his arms and legs are tied. Tied tight. Whoever has abducted him has gone to great trouble to make sure he doesn’t get away.

Vito Carvalho is at his desk before the sun of a new morning has fully risen.

He stands by the open window of his top-floor office blowing smoke out over the buildings and canals beneath him. He barely slept last night. Now he’s anxious about how Valentina is going to take the news that he’s decided to drop her from the team. He should have done it long ago – straight after her cousin’s death. She’s had no chance to recover. No time to grieve.

He finishes the cigarette and turns away from the window. Even now he’s having second thoughts. Work is what she’s hanging on to. The one constant that’s stopping her falling apart. He shakes his head. The screw-up over the fingerprints in the boathouse has changed everything. He simply can’t let another mistake like that happen. He has to put the investigation before her personal needs.

Vito settles back behind his desk and goes through the overnight reports from his team leaders. Gradually the offices around him begin to fill and he knows it will be only minutes before Valentina arrives.

He’s still thinking about how
she’ll react when the call comes in.

A call that instantly has him sending all his officers to a fresh scene: the sacred building that locals call the Chiesa d’Oro – the Church of Gold.

Most people would jump at the chance to visit St Mark’s Basilica free of tourists.

But not today.

No one is staring at the shimmering gold mosaics that adorn the ceilings. No one notices the brilliant Byzantine architecture or cavernous domes. The only people moving across the Chiesa’s geometrically patterned marble floors are police officers. The only thing getting their attention is far from holy.

Ashen-faced, the Prime Procurator Giovanni Bassetti sits on the back pew in a state of shock and dismay. As the person responsible not only for the basilica’s restoration but also for its caretakers and security guards, he’s failed in his duties. History will not remember the care he lavished on the iconic campanile or the wonderful four horses of the Triumphal Quadriga: it will only recall the atrocity that happened on his watch.

Vito Carvalho walks straight past him, down the main aisle towards the familiar figure of Rocco Baldoni. Somewhere off to the side, a camera shutter clacks and echoes through the cathedral’s waxy emptiness. He reaches the elevated presbytery and can’t help but feel it’s inherently wrong to be entering an area that used to be reserved for the clergy, and now excludes everyone except police officers. This is the resting place for the remains of St Mark, stolen by Venetian merchants from Alexandria back in the ninth century. It’s now the scene of a chilling act of blasphemy. At the back of the high altar is the basilica’s beautifully intricate
Pala d’Oro
– the Golden Pall. Across it, daubed in blood, six inches high and seven inches wide is the same rectangular symbol that they found at the Salute, and beneath it, the number 6.

Vito is shaking his head at the monstrous sacrilege when Valentina arrives, having just deployed search and interview teams. She crosses herself, genuflects and joins him on one of the isolation planks that forensics have put down to keep the area uncontaminated. ‘This is it?’ she asks. ‘There’s nothing more?’

Vito can’t help but remember that right now they should both be in his office and she should be learning she’s off the case. ‘This is all we’ve found for now,’ he answers. ‘There’s no liver, if that’s what you were thinking.’ He cranes his head forward to get a better look at the blood, then glances towards a
forensics officer hard at work. ‘Has it been brushed on?’

A dark-haired young woman, gloved and suited, looks up from her kneeling position. ‘
Si
. We’ve found a couple of bristles on one of the strokes.’ She nods towards a spray of Luminol. ‘And, yes, it
is
blood, not paint.’

Vito leans back. ‘So our killer has taken blood – bottled it – then he’s brought it here to paint a blasphemous message across the religious heart of Venice. And the
victim
? Dead or alive?’ He looks up, almost as though he expects an answer from God. ‘One we already know of, or one we are still to discover?’

Rocco joins them on the raised safe zone. ‘I’ve had a call from the Control Room. The press have found out that something’s going on. What do you want to do?’

Vito’s face turns angry. ‘I don’t want people to read about this. I don’t want the press to know
anything
about this. No words, no photographs, no gossip. Nothing must get out. Do you understand?’

Rocco breaks the bad news. ‘Too late.’ He throws a look towards the back pews. ‘The Procurator says there’s already been a snapper in here. He had to get him to leave.’

The major just about stops himself swearing. ‘Any signs of entry?’

‘Nothing obvious,’ says Valentina. ‘I’ve got men checking right now.’

Vito looks around and sees steel scaffolding, several buckets of plaster and industrial trowels and boards in the far corner. ‘Our man didn’t break in. He probably disguised himself as a maintenance or restoration worker, and then found a way to stay behind and hide somewhere when everyone else left.’ He climbs down from the forensic plank and walks off the altar. The absence of a liver at the scene is worrying him. He’s starting to understand what it could mean.

‘The offender still had to get out,’ says Rocco, following him down. ‘That would have been a gamble. There’s more of a chance someone noticed him leaving than entering.’

‘Then find them,’ snaps Vito. ‘I don’t have time for debating what’s obvious.’

Valentina takes a final look at the symbol before descending. ‘We’re already interviewing the workers. Asking if they saw anyone leaving early. We’ll canvass tourists as well – maybe someone got a snap. Of course, you know how difficult it is tracking tourists.’

Vito puts his hands to his head and closes his eyes. ‘Oh God, sweet merciful God, I hope I’m wrong.’

Valentina and
Rocco exchange quizzical glances.

Vito shares the thoughts that are troubling him. ‘There’s no liver because this victim isn’t dead yet.’ He points back towards the daubed blood. ‘But I’m sure that very shortly they will be.’

They all stare silently at the desecration and try to put themselves in the mind of the offender, try to guess his motivation, his end game. Vito motions towards the number beneath the symbol. ‘What’s going on here? This number, what do you think that means?’

‘Numbers are for counting,’ speculates Valentina, ‘so it’s some kind of countdown?’

‘Quite. But what? Is it in hours, days or weeks?’

Vito turns squarely to Valentina. ‘Find that damned ex-priest of yours. Find him quick, and pray he can tell us what the hell this all means, before someone else dies.’

1778

Rio Terà San Vio, Venezia

Tommaso can see why Tanina trusts Lydia. She’s one of those rare people who has the capacity to listen without interrupting. She’s patient and attentive as the young priest explains that he’s only recently learned he’s been separated from his sister since early childhood and is hoping to find her – and find her quickly.

‘Have you approached the convents?’ she asks. ‘The sisters will have records, and you may be able to gather a list of orphaned girls of the right age.’

Tommaso looks distressed. ‘It’s what I imagined as I left the abbey, but now I have no time. I also fear that if I show myself at such places then the abbot and the inquisitor will be alerted to my presence.’

‘I suspect you are correct,’ Lydia nods in agreement, then gives him a positive smile. ‘In a few days’ time I will have one of my servants make discreet enquiries for you. There are not many convents in the area, and the task should be an easy one.’

Tommaso is in the process of
thanking her when Tanina returns with Ermanno and Efran.

‘What the hell have you been saying?’ Ermanno makes for Tommaso. ‘You
stupid
fool!’

Efran steps between them. ‘We
know
what he’s been saying. Now calm down.’ He pushes Ermanno back, stares him into submission, then turns to Tommaso. ‘We are not beggars and thieves, signor. We sought to do
business
with you. To profit mutually.’

He looks towards Ermanno. ‘Neither my friend nor I know anything of the theft of your property, and we find it offensive that you thought us capable of doing such a thing.’

Lydia stands up. ‘Please excuse me. I need to make some arrangements and will rejoin you shortly. I’ll have some food prepared.’ She turns to Tanina. ‘I fear it may be the last decent meal you will have for a while.’

Ermanno watches her leave the room, gently closing the elegant brass-handled doors behind her, then he explodes again. ‘Do you not know what the guards will do to us? Have you not heard of the Canal of the Orphans, where they throw the bodies of those they’ve executed in their dungeons?’

Tommaso dips his head, unsure of how to cope with the confrontation. The past few hours have seen him lose his most prized possession, forsake his vocation and become homeless.

Tanina can see he is frightened. She sits by him and touches his arm reassuringly. ‘Brother, I’m sure we can sort things out. Though I confess, everything does look rather bleak.’

He peers up at the men opposite him. ‘You really know nothing of the theft? You swear it?’

Ermanno shakes his head. ‘Not a thing. We both swear it. Believe me, we do not have your heirloom.’

‘Then who does?’ asks Tanina. ‘Who could have taken it?’

The three friends stare at each other. Tommaso can see they’re mutually embarrassed. ‘Who else did you tell? It is human nature that you will have discussed this with someone else. Who?’

Ermanno looks nervous. ‘My family knew. My sister – she’s but nine years old – and my mother and father.’ He raises his eyes to Tommaso. ‘My father is an antiquities trader in the ghetto. But he is
not
a thief.’

‘I’m sure not. But if he told others, perhaps one of them is.’

Efran lets out a sigh and turns to Ermanno. ‘I told
you
. You are the only person I told.’

All eyes switch to Tanina.

‘I told Lydia. And she is
certainly
no thief. And
Ermanno and I spoke of the tablet. In fact, recently that seems to be
all
we have spoken of.’

He furrows his thick eyebrows. ‘And what does that mean?’

Tanina looks exasperated. ‘Nothing. Except that you were obsessed by the thing.’

‘Meaning you think I took it?’

‘Meaning nothing of the sort! I know you didn’t take it – you were with me all night. I merely meant that I would have liked you to have been less immersed in discovering the provenance of this damned thing and more attentive to me.’

Everyone’s attention switches to the doors as Lydia opens them and breezes in. ‘The dining table is set and food will follow shortly. I have sent a servant to a friend’s home. He owns a place where you will be safe.’

‘Thank you,’ says Tanina. ‘We’re very grateful for your hospitality and assistance.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Lydia smiles broadly. ‘This is all tremendously exciting. Quite an adventure!’ She grabs Tanina by one hand and Tommaso by the other and leads them to the doorway. ‘Now, come on – let’s all get a drink and see what we can do to brighten up your dreary spirits.’