The Venice Conspiracy (21 page)

CHAPTER 40

Present Day
Rialto, Venice

Not many applicants make it into the Carabinieri’s Corazzieri, the elite commando group that provides the honour guard for Italy’s president. Aside from the stringent military requirements, recruits must be taller than 190 cm - six foot three. It’s a big ask for most Italian males. Umberto Castelli was one of the select few to have qualified with flying colours.

Twenty years on, his exceptional qualities have earned him a place as the head of an undercover unit respected throughout the country.

Umberto goes to extremes to protect his identity, and that includes never setting foot inside a Carabinieri building. All his business is conducted strictly
off-site.

Bearded and dressed more like a busker than a major, he meets Vito Carvalho in a coffee shop off the Rialto. Close in age and bonded by mutual respect, the two men have become close friends.

The big busker asks for double espressos, then folds his legs beneath a table. ‘How’s Maria?’

It’s the question everyone who cares always asks Carvalho. ‘Up and down,’ comes the answer. ‘Physically, there’s no deterioration. The MS even seems a bit better. But at the moment she’s depressed.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Grazie
. We have a holiday coming up soon. That will brighten her mood.’

‘Good. I hope so.’ Castelli waits for a young waiter in a white apron to set down the steaming black coffees and leave, then he pulls open a plastic supermarket bag. Inside is a confidential file. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Antonio Pavarotti.’

Vito crosses himself. ‘God bless. You know his cousin is one of my lieutenants?’

‘Morassi, right? How’s she taken it?’

‘She’s strong. She’s working through the grief.’ Vito’s eyes look to the heavens. ‘But at some point it’s going to drown her as if a dam’s given way.’

Castelli rubs his beard. ‘I got the full report last night. Looks like we’re talking about murder, not an accident.’

Vito frowns. ‘Murder? The engineers called in after the salvage was done said it was most likely a gas explosion. The cooker in the galley.’

‘That’s what they thought.’ Castelli opens the manila file and passes it over. ‘The labs found traces of C-4.’

Vito feels as though someone’s painting his spine with ice. ‘Plastic explosive - but how? Where?’

‘Not quite sure. There wasn’t much of the boat left. On the engine, we think. The techies found traces of plasticiser and binder on the block.’

Vito plays with his coffee cup. ‘Clever. On detonation the explosive is converted into compressed gas. Whoever set it might have thought this would mislead an investigation team.’

‘They would have got away with it, only the shockwave was far too intense to have been produced by a regular gas cylinder. It tore most of the boat into tiny fragments.’

Vito sees flashes of Antonio at the helm. Flashes of the kid’s parents when he broke the news to them. Flashes of Valentina in his office - too proud and too brave to break down and cry in front of him. ‘I never expected this. What the hell was he working on? Some Mafia or Camorra job?’

Castelli shakes his head. ‘No, not at all. Or at least, we didn’t think there were mob connections.’ He scans the room before he continues. ‘It was a low-level undercover job. A fishing expedition. You’ve heard of the commune on Isola Mario?’

Vito rocks his head hesitantly.

‘It’s run by the billionaire Mario Fabianelli.’

Vito half remembers: ‘The internet whiz-kid - made a fortune and then stuck most of it up his nose?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘The island’s named after him, isn’t it?’

‘It is. Must be nice to be so rich you can afford an island. Anyway, too much coke must have gone to his head, because for the past year he’s turned it into a free-love commune he calls Heaven - though actually he doesn’t spell it the normal way. It’s alphanumeric - the Es are replaced by 3s and there’s no A.’

Vito wrinkles up his face in confusion.

‘H-3-V-3-N. Think of U2 - it’s like he’s trying to create a brand. The place even has its own website selling poems, paintings, pottery and jewellery made by the junk-heads.’

Vito wipes coffee from his lips with a paper napkin. ‘So, this is where Antonio was working? Digging around the hippies to see what drugs they were using on Mario’s Fantasy Island?’

Castelli nods. ‘We had a tip that there was a lot of gear there. Shipments of the stuff. Not just hash, but good quantities of E, maybe coke and even some H. Given the abuse record of the owner, we thought it worth a prowl. I specifically asked for Antonio because he’d done so well on the undercover job at the hospital. He was a bright boy.’

‘
Was
. He certainly
was.
’ Vito drops his head. ‘Had he found anything?’

‘No. At least, not that he’d had a chance to report in.’ They both fall silent for a minute. Vito knows what’s on his colleague’s mind - Valentina. Getting over a fatal accident takes a long time. Getting over murder takes a lifetime. ‘I’d best go and tell her,’ he says as he rises from his seat.

Castelli doesn’t say anything, just pats him on the arm as he walks past.

CAPITOLO XXXIX

27 dicembre 1777
Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore

Brother Tommaso Frascoli spends the day obsessing about the strange man he saw dropping things from the boat.

Throughout
lectio divina
his focus constantly wanders from his scripture studies.

What troubles him even more than being lied to is that he can’t figure out where the boatman came from
.
Tommaso had been heading south and the stranger in the mist had come from the north. But to his knowledge there were only one or two islands within rowing distance, and he thought both were uninhabited.

Tommaso momentarily wonders if the man was an apparition. A spectre or demon of some sort, sent to challenge him. He quickly dismisses the notion, accepting - as the abbot repeatedly tells him - that he needs to avoid flights of fancy and egocentric ponderings.

The illegitimate child of a courtesan, all he knows about his family is what the abbot has told him. Both Tommaso and his sister were passed to the clergy soon after birth. She went into a nunnery, and he’s been told that she ran away while still a novice. He does not know his father’s name. His mother, Carmela Francesca Frascoli, had given the priests no verbal explanation, just what few soldi and denari she possessed, along with a note and small wooden box that she requested be handed to her child when he became a man. Tommaso has both items under his bed. He’s never opened either of them.

It’s the way he deals with his abandonment. By not thinking about such things, he can trick himself into believing the absence of a mother and father doesn’t hurt. God has provided all the parental guidance he’s ever needed.

Except lately. Lately he’s been having doubts.

And sometimes, when the doubting becomes unbearable, it’s rowing - not praying - that seems to be the only thing that takes the pain away. Rowing hard. Rowing and rowing until his lungs feel like bursting and the boat skims like a flat stone across the surface of the dark water.

Alone in his cell before evening prayers, Tommaso’s heart is pumping as hard as any session in the monastery boat. And for good reason. Today is a special day.

It is his birthday.

His twenty-first.

A fitting time to face some personal demons.

He unwraps the tightly knotted string. Breaks the seal. Opens the box that his mother left for him and cannot believe his eyes.

CHAPTER 41

Present Day
Palazzo Ducale, Venice

A cool morning wind blows in from the Venetian lagoon, a stretch of water formed some seven thousand years ago when the Ice Age flooded the upper Adriatic coastal plain. Vito Carvalho stands by a gondolier station in the shadow of the Palazzo Ducale and stares out across the endless grey waves. He’s thinking about what Umberto Castelli has just told him.

Murder.

Antonio Pavarotti’s death was not an accident. He was murdered.

The young lieutenant’s face comes to mind. Fresh and handsome. Always smiling. Attentive eyes, the type that women notice.

What a waste.

What a
damned awful
waste.

Vito finishes his cigarette, the second of the day, and walks towards his office. He goes slowly. He needs the time and air to think properly. His desk has been swamped with three murder cases - Monica Vidic and the two men recovered from the lagoon. Now he’s got a fourth - Antonio. By way of consolation, he’s got something else too - a tenuous lead, a straw to grasp at. Okay, so it’s not much to go on, but what Castelli told him about Isola Mario is worth following up. Drugs are so often a factor in serious crimes.

Other things are troubling him too. He’s badly short of manpower, and his staff are close to exhaustion. Castelli had already promised him two second lieutenants from his undercover division, but before he meets them, Vito has a more testing appointment.

Bang on ten a.m., Valentina Morassi breezes into her boss’s office, slim fingers holding a takeaway coffee. ‘
Buongiorno
, I have your morning medicine, Major.’

‘
Grazie.’
He takes the cardboard cup and waits for her to sit. Given everything that’s happened lately, she looks amazing. Sure there’s extra make-up to hide the puffiness beneath her eyes, but still, the girl has a strength that he can’t help but admire. ‘Did you hear from our ex-priest after the visit to the Salute?’

Valentina uncaps her coffee, blows away some steam. ‘No, it’s my first stop right after this.’

‘Call him in. I need to speak to him here. I was watching his face yesterday - he saw something. When he looked at the blood smears, they seemed to mean something to him.’

Vito wants to carry on talking about other aspects of the case, to discuss the strange hippy commune at Isola Mario - anything rather than break the awful news to her. He looks down at his hands. There are nicotine stains between his fingers. It’s a long time since he’s seen that. He rubs at the yellow, then looks up and sees Valentina staring at him. Waiting for him. There’s no putting it off any longer: ‘I spoke to Castelli. The team investigating the explosion of Antonio’s boat no longer think it was an accident . . .’ He studies her face for shock. Not a trace. Only the questioning stare of a professional waiting for the rest of the story. ‘Forensics found particles of plastic explosive among the wreckage.’

He watches Valentina draw breath. A slight tremble rocks her shoulders. ‘I suppose you know he was working undercover on Isola Mario, the place owned by that weird internet billionaire.’

She nods. ‘What now?’

Her bluntness throws him. ‘
Scusi?’

‘How will the investigation be handled? Who will head it up?’

‘I will. Major Castelli previously offered some of his officers to help and we’ll have them on board very—’

She interrupts. ‘I want to work it.’ Her eyes blaze. ‘Let me be involved.’

Carvalho thinks about saying no. ‘You have a lot to do - the Vidic murder, bodies in the lagoon, the investigation at the church . . .’

Her eyes challenge him. ‘All this is linked, Major. I know it is. I
feel
it. Whatever team you pick will have to work across all three cases.’

They stare at each other and share unspoken words. There’s no forensic evidence to bind everything together, but Vito is sure she’s right. Somehow it’s all linked. He gives in. ‘I’ve asked for a search warrant. I believe we’ve grounds to interview Antonio’s workmates and his “employer”.’

‘The billionaire?’

‘
Si
.’ Vito doesn’t look enthusiastic. ‘We’re police officers, we don’t believe in coincidences, but tying all this together and making sense out of it is going to be a difficult task.’

Her face hardens. ‘I’m ready -
very
ready for any difficult task that finds Antonio’s killer.’

‘
Bene
. But if you feel any of this starting to stress you, then you tell me.’ He raises his right index finger and points paternally towards her. ‘I mean it, Valentina, you must tell me if it gets too much. The last thing I want is for your work to make your life even worse than it is.’

‘It couldn’t be,’ she says. ‘Believe me, there’s no way I could feel any worse than I do right now.’

CAPITOLO XL

1777
Rialto, Venezia

It took three years to build the Ponte di Rialto, and some days it feels like it takes that long just to cross it.

Today is such a day.

Venice has become the trading gateway to the world, and it seems to Tanina Perrotta that every nationality on earth is simultaneously swarming over Da Ponte’s famous bridge. The shop girl works on the south side of the bridge, in Gatusso’s, one of the city’s oldest and most respected arts and antiquities houses. Business is booming. Every day she sells paintings and curios for prices that astound her. It’s hard work, and now she’s longing to be on the other side of the bridge with Ermanno, the love of her life.

At last Lauro, her genial employer, flips the sign on the front door and pulls down a shade. ‘
Finito
. Go! Go! You’ve been gazing out of the window as though you were expecting the Doge himself to arrive. Is it really so tiresome working here?’

She grabs her cloak from a hook behind a drape. ‘You know I consider it a joy to work for you, signor. It is merely that I am meeting a friend and must run an errand first.’

‘Friend?’ He gives her a paternal stare. ‘Is this
friend
the Jew-boy from Buchbinder’s?’

Tanina’s moon-shaped face flushes as she tugs a sandy curl of hair back behind her ear. ‘You know it is. Ermanno and I have been together for nearly two years.’

Gatusso lets out a tut.

‘He is a
good
man!’ she protests.

‘The only
good
thing about him is that his rogue of a father had the sense to give him a Christian name.’

‘
Signor!
’

‘Tanina, you know as well as I do, if your dear parents were alive, they would forbid you from having anything to do with him.’

Hands on hips, she gives him a challenging look. ‘But, alas, they are not, and I am of an age when I can decide such matters for myself.’

They glare at each other. Tempers simmer. Lauro Gatusso has been the bedrock of her independence; without his support she’d be jobless, homeless and probably even Ermanno-less. Ironically, it was Gatusso who brought them together. They met while he was delivering goods her boss had bought from an old Jewish merchant in the ghetto.

‘I am sorry,’ Gatusso says finally. ‘It’s just that the boy’s father is a scurrilous ruffian. A low-life. A cheat of celestial magnitude. Old Taduch deals in dubiously sourced art and his ancestors are nothing but
strazzaria
- filthy rag traders.’

Tanina smiles as she edges past him to the door. Trading between the two businessmen has gone on for years - usually amicably - but their most recent deal ended badly. ‘I am sorry too. You have been most kind to me, and I respect your patronage and advice. It’s just . . .’

He waves her away with the back of his lace-cuffed hand. ‘I know, I know - it’s just that you
love
him. Love! Love! Love!’ He bundles her through the door with a smile ‘
Ciao
, Tanina. Take good care of yourself and make sure that Jew-boy gets you home safely.’

She gathers her skirts and hurries. It’s already getting dark and cold. Artists have packed up their easels from alongside the canal and most street traders have gone. She crosses the bridge and winds her way through the backstreets. First east, then north, then back north-westerly away from the looping bend of the Canal Grande and out towards one of the northernmost islands.

Tanina has been aware of the Jewish ghetto - the first in Europe - for as long as she can remember. Catholics have all but demonised the place. Everything Jewish is restricted. Trade, rights, status and even the movement of the people held within its vast walls are all constrained. Yet aside from the occasional clampdown, the guards generally turn a blind eye to those who treat them well, and so life goes on regardless.

She turns into the ghetto, immediately excited by its vibrancy. The place is a cauldron of wheeling and dealing, its streets overflowing with merchants and moneylenders. Furs, cloths and carpets are trundled in and out of the warehouses. Despite the lateness of the hour, tailors, jewellers and barbers are still hard at work. Tanina almost gets bowled over by a couple of water carriers as they hurry by, having drawn a full load from their master’s private well. She likes it here. Likes the energy, the danger, the feeling of being somewhere forbidden. She stops at a small shop near a coffin-maker’s to buy some meagre provisions - garlic, onions, chicken cuts and bread.

Ermanno’s parents’ home in the Ghetto Nuovo consists of a few rooms in an overcrowded, five-storey building that lies in the permanent shadow and suffocating smell of a nearby copper foundry. Because of family loyalties, he’s turned down better jobs with rivals in the other half of the settlement, the Ghetto Vecchio
.

Tanina finds the love of her life studying as usual.

Great texts and drawings from Egypt, Constantinople, old Italy, Germany and France are laid out on his sagging bed and across the dusty wooden floor where he’s now sitting. The books detail treasures from all the great eras and empires in the world.

‘Bonsoir, ma chérie!
’ he enthuses as she enters. Then, in passable English, ‘Good evening, my darling.’ He gets to his feet, frees her hands of groceries and finishes in German:
‘Guten Abend, mein liebling
.’ Then he presses his mouth to hers.

Tanina breaks free to catch her breath. Her eyes sparkle from the clinch. She takes a long look at him. More handsome by the minute. Dark, slim, well-muscled, with eyes that make her smile and melt her heart. She unbuttons her heavy wool cloak. ‘Shall I cook now or later?’

Ermanno puts his hands to the neck of her blouse, melts her again with his eyes, and undoes the first button. ‘Later.
Much
later.’