The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (32 page)

“What’s that, granny? A colleganza.”

Zuliani puffed out his cheeks in astonishment at Katie’s question.

“Call yourself a Venetian, and you don’t know what that is? It means Tiepolo had funded a trading enterprise along with others. He must have had a ship ready to sail just before the rebellion kicked off. In the situation we are in at the moment, that was a very risky thing to have done. He must have been pretty desperate.” He turned to Cat again. “Anything else of use?”

Cat paused for a moment, and then looked Zuliani in the eyes.

“There was something else, but it sounds foolish. Don’t laugh when I tell you.”

“Carry on. Anything, no matter how small or insignificant, could be important.”

Cat looked away, and took a deep breath.

“It is something your neighbour, Justinia Erizzo, said to me. Now, I know she is scatterbrained, and has been a little inclined to get emotional about death since her husband died.”

“Spit it out, Cat.”

“She said she saw Tiepolo’s soul flying away from the fire just at the end when the flames had reached him in the topmost room.”

“What? Out of the window?”

Cat frowned, and swirled the dregs of her wine in the bottom of her goblet. The sediment rose and with a grimace she put the goblet down.

“No. That was the oddest thing. She said she saw his soul fly out of the back door. You know her house faces that alley between your house and San Giuliano Church.”

Katie laughed at the idea of a soul using a door, but Zuliani had a serious look on his face. This wasn’t just a foolish woman’s whimsy. He felt sure there was something of substance about the vision. He waved his hand in the air, trying to urge his tumbling thoughts into some sort of order.

“This vision of a soul. How was it made up? Did she say?”

“Well no. A soul is … a soul. What should it look like?”

Katie stared at her grandfather. She was beginning to understand what he looked like when he was on to something. His body tensed, and he scowled.

“What is it, grandpa?”

Zuliani groaned.

“I hate it when you call me that. Call me Nick like you did before all this family stuff came up.”

Cat hid a smile behind her slender fingers. Zuliani was clearly discomfited by all this personal closeness. He had always preferred to be a free agent. But Katie would soon cure him of that – he couldn’t resist her charms – and Cat herself fancied getting as close as they had been all those years ago. The truth was she yearned to bed him. For now, she concentrated on the mystery of Tiepolo’s death.

“I too know when something is bothering you, Nick. So get it off your chest.”

Zuliani squinted at the two women, and shook his head decisively.

“Not yet. Not until I have verified a few more facts.”

Cat rose from her chair and stamped her foot.

“I swear, Niccolo Zuliani, you are even more exasperating now than you were forty years ago. I am not going to let you out of my sight until I get the truth out of you.”

Zuliani pushed himself out of his chair too, his bones creaking alarmingly.

“Then you must both come back with me to Ca’ Zuliani. But it is too dark now, and Justinia will be abed.”

“You intend to ask her about this nonsense about Tiepolo’s soul?”

Zuliani nodded.

“If it is nonsense, then I will have lost nothing by asking. But if it is not … I will have solved the whole mystery. But first, I need some sleep.”

Katie led him to where he would sleep that night, and then tripped down the passage to her own room. He stepped wearily into the room and was about to close the door, when Cat’s face appeared in the gap. She smiled knowingly.

“Do you need your sleep, old man? Or can you put it off for an hour or two?”

Zuliani grinned wolfishly.

“Only an hour or two? Your appetites must have diminished, granny.”

Cat growled, grabbed his arm and dragged him to her bed-chamber.

*

Zuliani arose early the next morning and tiptoed to his own room. He had no wish for Katie to know of the carnal nature of her grandparents. But it seemed his circumspection was all in vain. When he descended the stairs having splashed his face with cold water and dragged his fingers through his unruly hair, there she was in the main hall grinning from ear to ear.

“You look tired out, grand … Nick. Up all night, were you?”

Zuliani had no doubts about her meaning, and even blushed a little.

“You should be more respectful to your elders, Katie Valier. I am refreshed and ready to go. Are you?”

Cat entered the room, and yawned.

“So early? It is such a cold morning, why do we have to go now?”

Zuliani grinned at the two mystified women.

“I have a reason, but I can’t tell you now.”

Katie turned to her grandmother with a questioning look.

“Did you get nothing out of him last night?”

Cat withered the girl with a stern look.

“That is not how I brought you up, young lady.” She then paused, and laughed. “But you are correct. I got nothing out of him – from an informational point of view. He always did play his cards close to his chest. That was because, if he told no one his opinions, when he turned out to have got it wrong, no one could tell him so.”

Zuliani was beginning to wonder if he wanted to be bossed around by two women. But then he looked at the two of them and knew, for different reasons, it was worth it. Still, he decided he would string them along a little longer.

“If you ladies are ready, we should get moving.”

“Where are we going?”

It was Cat’s question, and he took delight in answering it in his own way.

“To my house first to look for something that is probably not there. And then to the docks to find something that we thought was no more.”

Before they could ask what he meant, he was out of the door and into the chilly morning where a thick mist swirled around the streets. The two women had to hurry to keep up with him as he crossed the Rialto Bridge and made for his own house in the Castello district. The morning mist made them seem like three wraiths flying through the
calles
of La Serenissima. Katie giggled, and thought too of Tiepolo’s soul fleeing the fire. There was something about Venice that resonated with death and life. She laughed out loud, and Cat gave her a curious look. But there was no time to stop, as Zuliani suddenly snapped his fingers and turned away from where his house stood. Cat called after him.

“Where are you going?”

His voice carried over his shoulder as he almost disappeared in the mist.

“An urgent errand. You go on to Ca’ Zuliani and I’ll meet you there.”

“Yes, but what are we looking for?”

It was too late. Zuliani was gone. Grumbling at his erratic behaviour, Cat stalked through the streets with Katie at her heels. When they got to the blackened shell that was Zuliani’s home, she turned to her granddaughter

“What the hell are we looking for, Katie?”

The girl shrugged her pretty shoulders.

“Something that won’t be there, he said.”

“Then how are we going to find it?”

“I don’t know for sure, but let’s go up to the top floor. That’s where Nick kept his treasures. If anything is missing, it is likely to be one of them. He showed me everything, so I may be able to recall if one of them is not there.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Cat touched the metal lizard on the newel post. She had the same thought as Katie had a few days ago.

“A salamander, perhaps? It didn’t help put out the fire though, did it?”

Katie gasped.

“Grandmother, you are a genius.”

She ran up the staircase, leaving a puzzled Cat at the bottom.

“Me, a genius? What did I say?”

She followed Katie up the stairs at a more sedate pace. When she got to the top room, she was appalled by the mess. She could now understand why Nick was so devastated by the fire. All his possessions were ruined – blackened lumps in a fire-seared room. But Katie, already covered in soot, was exultant as she bounced around the room.

“It’s not here.”

Cat took in a deep breath, holding in her exasperation. She calmed Katie down with a downward wave of her hands.

“For God’s sake, don’t you start. Just tell me what it is that isn’t here.”

Her answer came from the doorway, where Zuliani now stood.

“The salamander cloak. I should have realized sooner, but I wasn’t thinking then of anyone having escaped the fire.”

Cat was shocked.

“Escaped? How could anyone have escaped the fire? If it was as bad as you described …” She waved her hand around the room. “… as bad as it looks, no one could have escaped. It started on the ground floor and, from what you have said, Tiepolo was driven up the stairs. How could he escape from there? Unless he flew.”

Katie clapped her hands with pleasure.

“Tell her about the cloak, Nick.” She turned to Cat. “It’s made of salamander hair, you know.”

Zuliani laughed at the monstrous idea.

“Where did you hear that? All that is just part of the myth that no one really believes. The reality is that a fire-proof material does exist, and it’s made of material dug from the ground. I have seen it produced, and it is grey when woven. Throw it in a fire and it emerges undamaged, though by then it is white. There is a Greek word used for it – asßest??. Asbestos means unquenchable. I had a cloak of this material, and it should be in this upper room. Even the fire should not have damaged it. So, if it is not here, then someone wore it to flee the fire.”

Cat was catching on quickly.

“Then Tiepolo could be alive. But it doesn’t explain why he was in your house in the first place. Though he should thank his lucky stars that, as he was, he could use this miraculous cloak.”

Zuliani shook his head.

“No. It was not chance that led him here. You see, it was only days before the failed conspiracy that I showed Tiepolo my whole collection in this very room. He was one of a very few who knew about the salamander cloak.”

Katie was bursting to speak, so Zuliani allowed her to complete the curious sequence of events.

“He planned it from the beginning, gran. Once he was on the run, he knew he would be safe if he could fake his own death. Recalling seeing the cloak, he broke into Nick’s house—”

“When I was conveniently away.”

Katie acknowledged this with a little bow of the head.

“Tiepolo was in luck there – though perhaps not, thinking about it. Perhaps you, Nick, were going to be the body found after the fire. Then no one would have worked out his means of escape.”

Zuliani went pale at the thought that had not occurred to him. Katie was right. Tiepolo would not have left anything to chance. He was to have been Tiepolo’s stand-in body and, when he was found not to be at home, Tiepolo’s lieutenant, Girolamo Lando, had been killed instead.

“It is I who was the lucky one, then.”

Cat rounded off the story.

“Tiepolo’s other stroke of bad luck was his escape. He had thought no one would see him leaving by the secret back door, used only by the conspirators. But he had not bargained on the nosiness of your neighbour, Justinia. What she thought was Tiepolo’s soul flying to Heaven was a very corporeal Tiepolo wrapped in … asbestos.” She sighed. “So he has escaped justice, after all.”

Zuliani raised a finger, and winked.

“Don’t be so quick to despair. Remember, there is one more place for us to call this morning.”

Cat was puzzled.

“You said the docks, didn’t you? What can be there?”

Zuliani grin wolfishly.

“Come and see.”

*

The morning mist was clearing, though some stray strands of it weaved around the only ship at the dockside. Since the pope’s proclamations on Venice, hardly anyone dared trade – and stand to lose everything to marauders sanctioned by the Church. But one solitary ship was ready to sail, and a group of men huddled on the quay ready to board. Each had his cloak pulled around him and the hood up against the cold wind blowing off the lagoon.

“Whose ship is that?”

Zuliani answered Cat’s question.

“It is Tiepolo’s colleganza, and I see those seeking passage on it are ready to board.”

Cat made a move to walk down to the ship, but Zuliani stayed her with his arm.

“Just watch. My little errand this morning was to ask the captain the time of his sailing. And to ask him a favour – to shake the hand of everyone as they boarded.”

“Why?”

“You will see, Katie.”

They watched as each man was welcomed aboard in the way Zuliani had prescribed. Each man took the captain’s proferred hand and shook it. The last man, well wrapped up from the weather, winced as the captain squeezed his hand heartily. Zuliani whooped in delight, and ran down the quay, his fur-trimmed robe flying out behind him. He grabbed the final passenger by the arm firmly, pulling him back on to the quay.

“Francesco, I think you have a case to face here in Venice.”

As the big man turned round, his hood fell away. His features were reddened by fire, and his eyebrows had been singed off. But it was unmistakeably Francesco Tiepolo. He snarled at Zuliani, and would have aimed a blow at him, had not the captain held him back. Something heavy fell from his cloak on to the quay. Zuliani scooped it up with a whoop of delight. It was the gold
paizah
that gave him the authority of the Great Khan. Not everything had been lost in the fire after all, thanks to Tiepolo’s greed. Tiepolo cursed Zuliani roundly.

“Damn you. You should have burned in that fire, then no one would have known anything. A perfect crime that could never have taken place before now, as no one knew of the salamander cloak but you.”

“And which can never happen again, now the cat is out the bag. Trade with the East means that more and more will know about the magical properties of asbestos.”

Zuliani snapped his fingers in Tiepolo’s face as the burly figure of one of the Signore di Notte appeared out of the mists. Zuliani had requested their presence earlier. As he and Cat and Katie watched Tiepolo being led away, the girl asked a question that had been burning to be asked.