Isle of the Dead

Read Isle of the Dead Online

Authors: Alex Connor

BOOK: Isle of the Dead
13.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ALEX CONNOR

New York • London

© 2014 by Alex Connor

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to Permissions c/o Quercus Publishing Inc., 31 West 57th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10019, or to
[email protected]
.

e-ISBN 978-1-62365-370-5

Distributed in the United States and Canada by Random House Publisher Services
c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

www.quercus.com

Alex Connor is also known as Alexandra Connor, and has written a number of historical sagas under this name. She is an artist and lives in the UK.

The illustrations within this book are copies of Titian's paintings, the portrait of Angelico Vespucci the author's own.

Contents

Book One

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Book Two

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Book Three

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Book Four

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Book Five

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Book Six

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Epilogue

Bibliography

Also Available

TITIAN (SELF PORTRAIT)

 

PIETRO ARETINO (AFTER A PORTRAIT BY TITIAN)

 

ANGELICO VESPUCCI – THE SKIN HUNTER (IMAGE BY THE AUTHOR)

BOOK ONE

 

Thirty feet under the first supporting column of Grosvenor Bridge a savage tangle of birds were fighting, shaken on the shifting surface of the Thames, their beaks dipping and jabbing at each other to get closer to the package which had just been dropped there. Over the previous few minutes they had tried to rip open the plastic covering, but when they finally gained access to the insides they flew off, disappointed. Slowly but determinedly the tide finished off the birds' work and tugged aside the wrapping to expose the corner of a painting.

Incongruous under a sulky London sky, the painted face looked up as though surprised to find itself shuffled between the bridge supports; the merchant's vestments lapped by water as the painting headed towards a small launch vehicle. Then, buffeted by another early November wind, it spun on the current and was shunted away. Ten minutes later the portrait washed up on the slimy bank of the Thames where it was spotted by a tourist walking along the Embankment.

It was the first time the portrait of Angelico Vespucci had been seen in public for over four hundred years. As the painting was lifted out of the river, the varnished surface shimmered in the light, the eerie gaze of the sitter unblinking and oddly defiant. No one knew the history of the portrait, or of the man it portrayed.

No one knew that its discovery would result in brutal murder and the identification of a killer who had been active centuries earlier.

Prologue

Venice, 1555

I am afraid of water. Even though I was born with a caul on my head, which the old say is a protection from drowning. No one knows this, for people know little of me. That is my talent – to be invisible. Walking among people as unseen as the monsters under the Lagoon, the grasping weedy fingers lurking under bridges and the echo of drowned men, bleached and bloodless under the sea.

Winter has come quickly to Venice. Too soon, too cold, mists curling about the alleyways and the narrow bridges, figures looming up like ghouls as they go about their day. The atmosphere of the city has changed too. Long, fathomless nights and murky, unwholesome days lure in the city dwellers with the call of the bells from St Mark's. A darkness more profound than anyone can remember comes down on the city after dusk. Lamps struggle to make an impact, and they say more than fifty dogs have drowned, losing their bearings in the blackness.

Other books

Undercover Marriage by Terri Reed
Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
A Journal of Sin by Darryl Donaghue
The Ugly One by Leanne Statland Ellis
The Great Influenza by John M Barry