Brotherhood of the Tomb (23 page)

‘Please, Signor Canavan, come closer, let me see you better.’ He made a faint, dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘Leave us, Maria. We wish to be alone.’

Patrick heard the door close behind him with a muted click. He took several steps towards the count, approaching within a few feet of him.

‘Basta! That’s far enough, Signor Canavan. I can see you well from there. You’ll find a chair near you - please sit down.’

The chair was grimy but fairly dry. Patrick brushed it gingerly before seating himself on the edge.

Alessandro Contarini had aged dramatically in the past twenty-one years. Patrick remembered him as a handsome man in his late fifties, with smooth grey hair brushed back from his forehead, exquisite clothes, and skin that was still almost without wrinkles. Now he looked like a desiccated replica of his old self: his skin was grey and mottled, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken and haunted. Thin white hair straggled untidily down to his neck. The exquisite clothes were stained and torn, the polished white teeth that had once smiled so patronizingly had turned yellow or disintegrated to blackened stumps.

‘I’m sorry you do not find the palazzo as you last saw it,’ he said. His voice was strained and hesitant, with a tight, wheezing note; yet beneath the surface, Patrick could detect something of the old hauteur.

Patrick said nothing. The image from the fresco had embedded itself in his mind: a group of hooded figures circling about their helpless victim, dragging him towards a stone sarcophagus in a dark tomb set about with vines.

‘It was something of a shock to see you standing there tonight,’ the old man went on. ‘Did you know that someone was here this morning asking about you? No, I can see from your face that you know

nothing about it. That is very curious, is it not? How long is it now? Twenty years?’

Who came here?’ Patrick asked. ‘What did they want to know?’ He was frightened. Who the hell could have known so quickly that he was in Venice?

The count ignored his questions. ‘It must be more than twenty,’ he said. ‘And now you come to my attention twice in one day. You aren’t famous, are you, Signor Canavan? You haven’t won a lottery or killed a president? No? And yet important people come here asking questions. They wanted to know about the past, about your friendship with my daughter. And now the past turns up on my doorstep howling demands into the night, “You owe me an answer!”’

The old man paused.

‘Is that all you think I owe you? I seem to remember that, when we last met, I offered you money. That was immodest of me -I apologize. Perhaps we understand one another better now. You were a child then, little older than my son, Guido. And yet your grief was real, not a child’s grief at all. I am sorry you were hurt, sorry you were made to suffer. Please forgive me.’ He sighed, passing a long white hand over his cheeks.

‘At my age, nothing is left but forgiveness. So many things left unsaid, undone. And so much said and done that I regret. It will come to you in time, Patrick Canavan.’

‘Where is Francesca?’ Patrick asked softly.

‘Francesca is sleeping. Francesca is dead.’

Patrick shook his head.

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he said. He wondered why he was so calm, why his voice had fallen to little more than a whisper. ‘There’s no need to lie any longer. Just tell me where she is, that’s all I want to know.’

‘You speak as though she were alive.’

‘I’ve been to the tomb on San Michele. There’s nothing there. And I have a photograph.’

He took the crumpled picture from his pocket and passed it to the count. Contarini looked at it for a long time.

‘Where did you find this?’ he asked finally.

‘Does it matter?’

The old man shrugged.

‘Perhaps not. Well - what is it you want?’

‘An explanation.’

‘There are no explanations that would make sense to you.’

‘Suppose you let me be the judge of that.’ Patrick hesitated. He leaned forward, softening his voice. ‘Signor Contarini, I don’t think you understand. I loved your daughter once. I believe she loved me. Twenty-one years ago, she was taken from me. Someone, for reasons I cannot even guess at, pretended she was dead. I was summoned here by you and made to go through a mock funeral. I saw no reason to ask questions then. I left when you asked me to leave. But I will not leave tonight without answers.’

Contarini handed the photograph back to Patrick. His hand was shaking, and Patrick noticed tears at the corners of his eyes.

‘Signor Canavan, please believe me: Francesca loved you as much as you thought, and maybe more.’ He looked up. His face bore a look of infinite, irredeemable sadness. ‘I think...’ He faltered. ‘I think she still loves you. Or at least your memory.’

The count straightened and looked directly at Patrick.

‘Do not try to find her, Signor Canavan. She can never come back to you, never return to the world you inhabit. For you and your world, it is as though

she had died. Don’t try to change it. Leave things as they are.’

Patrick took a deep breath. Contarini’s words were like a finger tearing back a scab, exposing an ancient wound. He had thought the pain of Francesca’s loss something wasted and bereft of strength, but in a moment it had returned with renewed vigour, like a blunt knife suddenly sharpened, cutting his flesh.

‘Why?’ he whispered. ‘Why?’

The count did not reply at once. He sat in his high-backed chair like a faded Renaissance prince whose court has deserted him.

‘Signor Canavan,’ he began, ‘there have been Contarinis almost as long as there has been a city called Venice. Eight Doges of the Republic bore our name. We owned palaces and ships, warehouses and trading houses here and throughout the Mediterranean. From the beginning we sat on the Great Council and the Senate and the Council of Ten. Now there is only myself, an old man waiting to die in a house that is already a ruin. Nothing you can do or say now can hurt me or help me.

‘But you want the truth, and the truth is precisely what I cannot give you. It is, I suppose, too shocking. Not for me, perhaps; but others would find it so. And in their rage, they would do what the many-headed crowd has always done: destroy what they do not understand.’

The old man paused again. His pale eyes scanned the dimly-lit room as though seeing it for the first time.

‘There are ghosts here,’ he said. ‘This room is full of them. Some of them I can see, others only hear. Perhaps they are not literal ghosts: I do not think they could harm us, at least not in any physical

sense. But they are real all the same. Listen, Signor Canavan, let me tell you about them.

‘Centuries ago, when Venice was still a vassal of Byzantium, a group of merchants defied the Emperor’s ban on trade with Egypt and sailed to Alexandria. They filled ten ships with spices, silks, and carpets and came home rich men. One of them was my ancestor, Pietro Contarini. Two years later, he and another man returned to Alexandria; but this time they had not come for spices or cloth. They stole the mummified remains of Saint Mark and smuggled them back to Venice. The mummy was laid to rest beneath the High Altar in the Basilica - and Venice became a great pilgrimage centre.’

The count fell silent. On the canal outside, a motor-powered boat chugged slowly through the night. The sound of the engine filtered past heavy shutters into the room, rising briefly, then dying away as the boat turned a corner and vanished.

‘Pietro Contarini,’ he continued, his voice reduced almost to a whisper, ‘brought something else back to Venice along with the body of the saint. He had discovered something which, to him, was infinitely more valuable than the bones of a holy man. Pietro’s discovery was not a relic or a piece of merchandise or a box of treasure - it was the truth. A truth so devastating that he kept it to himself for the next forty years.’

Patrick fixed his eyes on the count’s pale lips as he related his tale. In the shadows of the room, he imagined others crouched and listening.

‘On his deathbed, however, Pietro told one of his sons, a man of over forty himself by then, Andrea. In those days, merchants were still trading regularly with North Africa, in spite of the objections of the Pope and the Byzantines. Andrea took a ship to

Alexandria, then made his way overland to Palestine. To Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre.’

In the room, nothing moved. Even the shadows held still. Outside, all was silent. Patrick could hear his breath coming and going in the stillness.

‘Over five years passed before Andrea returned. He had seen with his own eyes what Pietro had only heard about. And he had met the keepers of his father’s secret. In the few years that remained to him - for he died six years later of the plague - he confided in members of his family and a few, carefully-chosen friends.

‘That, Signor Canavan, was the beginning of our rise to power. Pietro’s secret was, indeed, more precious than silks or spices.’

Contarini paused.

‘But power has a price,’ he resumed. ‘A man cannot have power and riches, yet possess his own soul. No more a family. The Contarinis, the Barbaros, the Grimanis, the Sagredos ... all the noble houses who came to share our secret - all paid their price. Our families, our private affections, our faith, even our souls ... all for the sake of a truth the multitude could neither understand nor tolerate.’

He fell silent, folding his sallow hands together like the wings of a giant, broken butterfly. A tremor passed through them and grew still. Outside, the lapping of water against stone was the only sound.

‘How,’ Patrick asked, ‘does this explain Francesca? Her death, her being alive?’

Contarini sighed. It was a deep sigh, almost a moan.

‘Don’t you see? Francesca was my price. Her happiness was the sacrifice I had to make. And you were her sacrifice - all she had, all she wanted.’

‘For this?’ Patrick rose angrily, gesturing violently

at the crumbling damp-stained walls, the broken and rotting furniture.

The count shook his head. The long white hair had fallen across his face like a veil.

‘No,’ he said. His voice had changed in timbre, acquiring vigour from some hidden reserve. He raised a hand and pointed, jabbing again and again at the great fresco.

‘For that, you fool! For that!’

THIRTY-ONE

Patrick left the palazzo in a daze. Contarini’s anger had subsided into a fit of coughing, and Maria had hurried in to tend him and chase his visitor away. He had left quickly, chased by shadows, harried by ghosts, out into the awful night.

The crippled dog still lay crouched in its corner, shivering with cold. Patrick felt torn between disgust and pity. He wanted to throw stones at it or break its neck. Its misery appalled and frustrated him: to drive it away or put it to sleep were the only options he could stomach. But he did neither. He lacked both courage and conviction.

Instead, he turned his back on the dog and the palace of the Contarinis, and walked quickly out of the calle. A freezing mist had moved in off the Adriatic and crept across the city while Patrick talked with Contarini. It had worked its way slowly along the streets, and now lay flat on the surface of the canals, obscuring the rounded backs of bridges and drifting into every calle, fondamenta and rugetta. Like wisps of white smoke, its tendrils wandered through the sleeping streets, curling about the infrequent street-lamps, blurring and softening what little light there was. In archways and sottoporticos, thick masses of it lay like predators, waiting for the unwary.

Patrick turned his collar up against the chill air. In his agitation, he had taken a wrong turning shortly after leaving the palazzo. Now the mist was playing with him, teasing him, leading him further and further astray. His footsteps echoed between the close-packed buildings on either side -a desolate sound that only emphasized how alone

he was in this half-deserted city.

He picked up speed, but the further he walked the less familiar his surroundings seemed. Reason told him to knock on the first door he came to and ask the way. But it was after midnight, and the bolted doors and shuttered windows he passed held out no prospect of a warm welcome.

After a while, he came to a deserted square. He found the name on a blue and white plate high up on one corner: Campo dei Carmini. But it meant nothing to him. Along one side of the little square, the dark facade of a baroque church loomed menacingly out of the mist. Its troubled pillars and sinister windows reminded him of the tombs on San Michele, as though the church had been constructed for the dead and not the living.

Leaving the square, he paused to read the name of the street he had just entered. As he did so, he heard a sound behind him. It had resembled a foot scraping against stone. And it had not been an echo.

Pressing himself against the side wall of the church, he listened carefully for the sound to be repeated. He could not be certain, but he thought it had come from the square. Contarini had said that someone had been asking questions about him. Was there someone out there now, following him?

He moved on, walking more slowly now, straining to distinguish between his own footsteps and the echoes they raised, listening for the tell-tale sound of someone tailing him. If he could lead his shadow on, then double back and move in from behind, he might be able to collar him. But the mist and his own disorientation limited his freedom to act.

A narrow alleyway opened out onto a bridge. In a window opposite, a light was burning. He crossed the bridge, then halted, waiting. The silence was

thick and oppressive: he wanted to call out, to tear it to pieces without remorse. It came again: a single scrape in the alleyway. Through an arch, he caught sight of another canal: the passage ran down to the water and, as far as Patrick could see, ended there. If he could trick his pursuer into heading that way, he might be able to trap him.

He headed slowly down the passage. ‘Don’t lose me now, for God’s sake,’ he whispered. The mist thinned out a little here, but he had to step carefully lest he mistake the edge of the bank and plunge into the water. His guess turned out to be correct: the passage ended at the water, and there was no path either to right or left.

Intuition had suggested that someone would have left a boat tied up here, otherwise there would have been little point to the small landing area at the end of the passage. Through the mist, he could make out the shape of a small sandolo covered in a heavy tarpaulin. He pulled the boat nearer with the painter and slipped over the side, almost losing his footing on the slippery cloth.

He crouched down in the shallow vessel, thankful for the mist, just able to see the end of the passageway over the edge of the bank. And there, at last, an unmistakable footstep! He felt tension build in his stomach and all through his muscles.

A shadow moved. Patrick held himself ready to spring. Everything depended on how close his pursuer came to the edge: far enough, and he might be able to grab him and pull him over. At least he had the element of surprise. The mist parted and the shadow became a dark figure. Patrick held his breath. ‘Come closer, damn you! To the edge. Come on!’ The figure hesitated, frightened perhaps that he might lose his footing in the mist and fall. Patrick felt the sandolo

rock uneasily beneath him: it made a poor platform from which to launch himself at his pursuer.

The figure paused, then turned abruptly and began to walk back along the sottoportico. Patrick flexed his legs and jumped onto the bank, falling on his knees. As he landed, he saw the figure look round and catch sight of him. He scrambled to his feet in time to see his pursuer stumble into the mist.

‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘I want to speak to you!’

There was a sound of running footsteps. Patrick broke into a trot. He reached the street again just in time to see the mist fold round a moving shadow. Footsteps rang out like bullets in the darkness. Patrick set off in pursuit, following the sound.

He ran breathless through a maze of alleyways, across bridges, along narrow embankments, the sound of footsteps luring him on, deeper and deeper into the swirling mist. Sometimes he thought he had lost his quarry: he would take a false turn and all but lose the scampering footsteps, then suddenly he would come out along a different passage and hear them ahead of him once more. Twice he caught sight of the running figure ahead of him, a dark blur in the mist.

Out of breath, he stopped on a little bridge to catch his wind. Leaning against the metal balustrade, he looked up and caught sight of someone on a second bridge, just yards away. The mist parted momentarily, giving him a clearer look. His head felt light. He could feel the blood pounding in his temples, his heart pumping wildly in his chest, making him giddy. Had he been mistaken? He looked again, but the mist had swept back. There was no one on the other bridge.

‘Francesca!’ he called. ‘Francesca, fermati!’

Running footsteps sounded on the riva just beyond

the bridge where the figure had been standing. Patrick felt a new energy sweep through him. He dashed off the bridge, almost falling down a short flight of steps in his haste.

The footsteps were on his right now. Spinning, he hurried down a mist-choked alleyway, coming out onto a wider street just in time to see the figure vanish again. Gasping for breath, he set off in pursuit. A sharp, stitching pain flared up in his side, making him bend almost double. Gritting his teeth, he pressed on. His legs were like lead, and his head was swimming.

‘Fran.. .cesca ... Per grazia di Dio!... fermati!’

His breath was coming now in harsh, laboured gasps as his lungs struggled in the damp air. A broken paving-stone caught his foot, sending him sprawling on his face. Winded, he lay for half a minute, his head spinning, fighting for each breath.

Closing his eyes against the pain, he pushed himself up and took a step forward. A pang of pure agony stabbed through his gut. Lights exploded in his head. His legs buckled and gave way. He felt himself falling, his body out of control, then all feeling left him and he was plunging, disembodied, through the deepest blackness he had ever known.