The Venice Conspiracy (31 page)

He sits on a wall by the well where they’ve arranged to meet. Venice is surrounded
by sea water, so ironically fresh drinking water is precious. It would, however, be bad form simply to help himself. Faces peer down from tenement windows on all four sides of the square. A young woman hangs washing on a line and smiles at him. A grandmother reaches out and closes green wooden shutters that are warped and faded by the sun. Finally, an olive-skinned young man arrives, pulls up a bucket and a tin mug on a piece of string. ‘Water, Brother? You look as though you are in need of sustenance.’

Tommaso is relieved and his face shows it. ‘Most kind.
Molte grazie
.’ He drains the mug and, without prompting, the man refills it. ‘The name’s Efran, I live in this campo. Can I help you get somewhere?’

Tommaso wipes his mouth with his hand. ‘I am Brother Tommaso, from the monastery on San Giorgio – and thank you, no – I’m not lost. I’m just seeking some answers to a personal puzzle, and don’t seem to be able to find anyone to supply them.’

Efran laughs. ‘I thought that was why people turned to God. For answers.’

‘It is, but it seems the good Lord is letting me solve this one on my own.’ Tommaso pulls the sketch out of a pocket in his hooded outer robe and uncreases it. ‘Venice is said to be the centre of world art, but I find only salesmen when I’m looking for scholars. I need someone who may know something about artefacts or old silver jewellery, like this.’

Efran sits and rests his back against the well wall while he looks at the sketch. ‘How large is this? Small like a pendant, or bigger?’

Tommaso holds up his left hand. ‘From the tips of my fingers to my wrist and about four fingers wide.’

Efran’s impressed. ‘Substantial. And is it from the church, from an altar?’

The young monk looks offended. ‘I believe I told you, this is a personal family matter. The object was left to me.’

‘I apologise, Brother, I meant no offence. I was merely trying to establish its provenance.’

‘No offence taken. I assure you, this belongs to me and not to the church.’

Efran hesitates. ‘I have a friend in the ghetto’ – he glances at the young monk – ‘a Jew, very learned. He and his family trade in foreign antiquities and oddities – many of which I get for him from the docks down here.’ He taps the sketch. ‘Ermanno may well know something about this strange block. Did you say it was made of silver?’

‘I think it is. But really, it is not appropriate that a Christian monk seeks the aid of
a Jewish trader.’

Efran rolls his eyes. ‘Are we not Venetians first and Christians and Jews second?’

Across the courtyard, backlit in the shadows of an alleyway, Tommaso sees the rotund silhouette of Maurizio rolling slowly towards them. Impulsively, he closes Efran’s hand over the sketch. ‘Then I’d be grateful if you would show my drawing to your Jewish friend – but please keep this as a confidence between us.’ He looks towards Maurizio, now emerging into the campo. ‘This is a fellow monk, please do not mention anything to him.’

Efran pockets the paper and convincingly switches his attention to the cup, bucket and well. ‘Then I’ll bid you good day and safe passage, Brother Tommaso.’ He points up at a window. ‘My home is on the second floor opposite us, the one with only one brown shutter over the window. The other is broken, and I keep meaning to repair it. If you’re back this way again, please feel inclined to ask after me and I’ll bring you more water.’

Efran is gone before Maurizio arrives. Tommaso steers his well-fed friend back towards their
bragozzo
, all too aware that his doubts over the abbot have now led him into a sticky web of deceit.

Present Day

Carabinieri HQ, Venice

The office is stacked with pizza and beer as the team gather for an evening debrief in Carvalho’s office. The atmosphere crackles like a loose cable in a thunderstorm.

Everyone wants to speak first.

They all have a new hunch – a fresh theory – a nagging doubt that they’re desperate to voice.

Valentina fans out a pack of photographs of the boathouse interior. ‘Look at these crafts. This is a Czeers. Carbon-fibre body. Solar-powered. Does thirty knots.’

Vito frowns. ‘You mention this because …?’

‘It fits. That’s my point,’ says Valentina. ‘I’d expect a billionaire to have a solar-powered plaything.’ She
shuffles out some more shots. ‘It also fits that he’d have this dinghy, this fishing boat and even this UFO-looking sports boat. But I don’t buy this—’ She drops the glossy of the sleek black gondola on the desk. ‘
This
doesn’t fit.’

‘Why not?’ Rocco Baldoni spins the print round so he can see it better. ‘Many rich Venetians renovate gondolas and keep them for show. Some even plant flowers in them.’

‘Rubbish,’ snaps Valentina. ‘Mario’s not some hippy gardener.’

‘Ahh, but he is,’ protests Vito. ‘A hippy is exactly what he is. That’s what the whole of his island is about.’

She flaps her arms in annoyance. ‘But there weren’t flowers in this boat, were there?’ Her voice is heavy with sarcasm. ‘It was operational. Smart and seaworthy.’

‘So you think … what?’ asks Vito, still playing devil’s advocate. ‘That he uses the gondola to pass unnoticed among the masses? That he used it to sail up to Antonio’s boat and rig it with explosives? Or that he uses it to kill tourists and then bring them back to Fantasy Island so he can butcher them?’ He looks at her kindly and lets out a tired sigh. ‘It’s all a bit far-fetched, Valentina. Remember, Antonio was sent there as part of an undercover
drugs
job. If anything, you might find traces of narcotics inside the gondola, but I doubt it.’

Rocco interrupts: ‘Given the millions of tourists in Venice, it’d be strange
not
to find some traces of drugs.’

Valentina snaps again at him. ‘But this is not a tourist boat, stupid! It’s a private craft.’

‘Enough!’ shouts Vito. He rubs his head and waits for peace to return to the room. Everyone’s tired and stressed, he can see it in their eyes. He thinks of his wife and her illness and her fear of being on her own. He feels guilty about not being with her. ‘That’s it for tonight, let’s wrap it up. Make sure everything that should be with the labs
is
with the labs, then go and get some sleep.’

Valentina doesn’t seem to hear him, or notice him putting his pen in his pocket and looking for his keys. ‘What about these monitors?’ She deals out more stills. ‘Monitors
inside
the boathouse. Not on the main security links. They’re rigged to a surveillance system that Jack Bauer and CTU couldn’t afford.’

‘For God’s sake, Valentina – the man’s a
billionaire
!’ Vito’s sorry he’s snapped as soon as he’s done it. He forces himself into a calmer, more reasonable tone: ‘He
has to make sure he doesn’t get kidnapped. If I were him, I would have cameras and monitors everywhere. In fact, I wouldn’t even go to the toilet without three people coming with me. Now, go home.’

Vito walks towards the door, then turns. He’s been too hard on her and he knows it. ‘Valentina, there’s good circumstantial evidence and actually more leads than I thought we’d get – but that’s all they are: leads. A tiny quantity of drugs turned up in some hippy beds. Hash, ecstasy, amyl nitrate and speed. Nothing to send anyone to jail for, but enough to get us in there again if we want. The gondola is
interesting
– but only relevant if it shows any forensic links to our victims, and at the moment we have no such evidence.’ He looks across at his team and realises he can’t just walk out on them. They’re not done. Not by a long way. Maria will just have to wait. ‘Okay, we spend ten more minutes on this.’ He returns to his desk. ‘Tom, run through what you told me on the way back, the stuff about the Satanists.’

Tom cracks his fingers while he gathers his thoughts, a habit that used to get him a telling-off from his church housekeeper. ‘Mera Teale – the tattooed lady who says she’s Mario’s PA – told me they had Satanists practising there. I believe her. The room I went into had certainly been used for a Black Mass.’

Vito interrupts. ‘How do you prove that?’

‘She
said
so.’

‘That means nothing. How do you
prove
it?’

‘There was black candle-wax on the skirting.’

Vito laughs. ‘Oh, come on, Tom! You can’t prove the presence of the Antichrist by holding up a dribble of black candle-wax. Coloured candles – even black ones – are bought by hundreds of thousands of people. We need damning scientific evidence that links people to actual crimes.’

‘Science isn’t everything,’ says Tom sharply.

‘
Really
?’ says Vito, now sounding exasperated. ‘I suppose religion is a better bet?’ He picks up the phone. ‘Oh, that I could get God on the line. God, the good guy, who shouldn’t have let any of this damned well happen in the first place. The same God that went missing when Monica was killed, and Antonio murdered. The God who strands me here with you idiots while my crippled wife wonders where I am?’ Vito can’t believe he said all that, especially the last part. He must be more tired and stressed than he thought. He puts his head in his hands and slowly massages his temples, acutely aware of the stunned silence in the room.

Tom is first to speak. ‘I sympathise with your anger. And your
need
to focus on facts. And I can
certainly understand why at this moment you’re questioning God. But right now, while the facts may be non-scientific they’re as clear-cut as a DNA test.’ He counts them off on his fingers: ‘First, Monica Vidic is stabbed six hundred and sixty-six times – a very significant and symbolic number. Second, her body is moved through the canal system unnoticed – and with thousands of gondolas on the water, who
would
notice another one? Third, we have the Satanic defilement of the Salute and Mera Teale’s admission that there are Satanists at the commune.’

‘Coincidences,’ says Vito, sounding drained.

‘We must at least identify and question the Satanists,’ says Rocco.

‘Of course we must,’ growls Vito. ‘But not until you’ve got your forensic results.’ He turns back to Tom. ‘Finish your appraisal, you were doing well.’

Tom glances at Valentina, hopes what he’s about to say won’t upset her. ‘Finally, Antonio Pavarotti is working undercover, investigating a drug ring operating on Mario’s island, when he is killed. Why? His death must have something to do with what’s going on in that mansion – a place where we know there’s been Satanic activity.’

Vito stares off into space, what he calls a George Bush moment: though outwardly he looks clueless, internally he is processing information, trying to make sense of it all.

‘I have a friend at the Vatican,’ continues Tom. ‘He’s digging up information on the Etruscans and—’

‘Enough!’ says Vito, holding up the palm of his hand. ‘No Etruscans, not tonight at least.’

Tom gives him a look of surrender: he can see Vito is exhausted.

The major glides his chair under his desk. ‘Isola Mario is under surveillance tonight. Long-range and close-up. No one on the island can so much as spit into the lagoon without us taking samples. Tomorrow we chase forensics. All the reports.’ He looks to Rocco, Valentina and Tom. ‘Then we meet again, and you can talk all the Etruscan you want and satisfy your curiosity by finding these Satanists and seeing whether they’re harmless fancy-dress merchants or the real deal. Until then, let’s all get some sleep.’

1777

Ghetto Nuovo, Venezia

Ermanno’s eyes
are candle-bright as he smooths the sketch of the silver tablet out on the family table. ‘A monk, you say? A lowly friar gave you this?’

Efran slips off his new, mid-length green coat, richly embroidered in gold scrolls from collar to hem, and places it lovingly over the back of a chair that’s older than he is. ‘He was Benedictine. Black robes and a picture of pure innocence. Came from San Giorgio.’

His friend fingers the drawing, as though touching it will help him divine its mystery. ‘It’s fascinating. You think he
owns
this object? Or has he stolen it and wants to sell it?’

Efran shrugs his bony shoulders. ‘He says it’s his, but who knows? Important thing is that it may be worth something, and we may be able to get our hands on it.’

The pained face of the impaled netsvis stares up from the table. ‘But do we want to get our hands on it?’ queries Ermanno playfully. ‘Some of these Greek and Egyptian artefacts are cursed. They come from tombs and are supposed to belong to the dead in the afterlife. Steal that kind of stuff and you end up with a whole legion of spirits on your trail.’

‘The only spirits I believe in are the ones you drink. As for the afterlife, most of us don’t even have a
current
life worth worrying about.’

Efran carries on talking but Ermanno’s stopped listening. He’s now engrossed in the lettering. ‘I think it’s Etruscan. The writing looks Etruscan.’

‘Before Roman times?’

‘Well done. Very much before, and maybe even eight or nine centuries before Christ. But
this
particular object isn’t quite that old. The lettering looks somewhat later.’

Efran rubs his hands. ‘Very educational. More import antly, what’s it worth?’

‘Philistine! It’s impossible to guess
without seeing it. Did the monk say it was
solid
silver?’

Efran struggles to remember. ‘No, I don’t think so. He just said silver.’ He holds out his palm, ‘About as big and almost as wide as my hand.’

‘The Etruscans mined silver. There are no gold mines in Italy, though over the years gold became the offering of choice to the gods.’

Efran is bored. He merely wants to know the thing’s value and then figure out how to persuade the monk to part with it. He stands and grandly pulls on his coat. ‘I’ll leave it with you. Let me know if you solve the mystery – and its price.’

Ermanno doesn’t even notice his friend leave. He bends over the sketch in concentrated silence and soon surrounds himself with every book he has on ancient art and religious artefacts.