Lovers and Liars Trilogy (39 page)

“Grazie mille,”
he said. He handed back his half-empty cup of espresso, looked out at the sky, and made a few disparaging remarks about the weather in Italian. The café owner noted that his accent was good, his phrasing idiomatic—though he was certainly not a Venetian, not from around there. The man peeled off a few notes and tossed them down. They came to several thousand lire more than the price of an espresso. Without further comment or backward glance, the foreigner walked out into the rain.

On the far side of the canal, Pascal and Gini found four rental agencies, including the one in the Calle Larga, but all four were closed and shuttered. They inquired in numerous hotels: None had any single Englishmen registered, let alone one who fit McMullen’s description. Few cafés or restaurants were open out of season; of those that were, they tried the obvious ones first, then the less obvious ones, tucked away in back streets. No one recognized McMullen’s photograph.

“Nothing,” Pascal said. They had returned to St. Mark’s Square, and were standing outside the glitter and glimmer of the cathedral’s facade. “This is a hopeless task. There are thousands of cafés, thousands of hotels.” He stared angrily across the square. The light was failing. Water made the paving stones of the piazza shine. Lights spilled out from the cafés in the arcades on either side.

Gini glanced over her shoulder. From the cathedral porch behind came the sound of voices. A few off-season tourists made their way in and out. English voices; American voices; other languages she could neither identify nor understand. Shapes of people, shadows. She turned back to Pascal, and so did not notice that one of those shadows was close behind them by the steps.

Gini shivered and drew her coat around her. The wind was blowing up, the light fading; it was cold, and her hands felt like ice.

She felt a sudden despondency. All this way for nothing. She shook herself, then chafed her hands together. Pascal, turning, saw the expression on her face.

“Don’t despair.” He put his arms around her. “You’re cold, and you’re tired. But we mustn’t give in. We’ll go to a café, get something to eat. Drink some hot coffee. Then we’ll go back to that apartment again.”

“What if there’s still no reply?”

Pascal hesitated. He said gently, “Gini, you know the answer to that. Somehow or other—legally or illegally—we get in.”

At five they returned to the Palazzo Ossorio. It was dark, and the surrounding streets were ill lit. The whole area seemed deserted: There were no passersby on the streets, no sounds of voices, or radios or television. Above the dark water of the canal rose a thin greenish mist.

Pascal led her across to the silent building. He took her hand, and they felt their way across the courtyard. At the foot of the stone staircase he produced a flashlight. By its narrow beam, still hand in hand, they began to mount the stone steps.

Halfway up, Gini froze. She said, “What’s that?”

They stood, listening. Pascal switched off the flashlight. The darkness was thick; she could see nothing, not even the outlines of the steps. She felt her skin chill, and the hair prickle at the back of her neck.

From somewhere, perhaps below, perhaps above them, came the sound of a low crooning. The sound rose in pitch, then diminished to a whisper, then stopped. She felt Pascal’s body tense.

After a pause the noise began again, a low, liquid, murmuring sound, like an incantation. Gini felt something brush her legs. She stifled a cry, and Pascal drew her close. He pressed his hand across her lips, and said in a low voice, “Someone lives here. This building isn’t deserted at all.”

He listened, the crooning began, again stopped. Somewhere below them there was a shuffling sound. A door opened and closed. Against one of the stairway walls, momentarily, they saw a band of light. It disappeared as the door closed and the murmuring recommenced.
“Cats,”
Pascal said suddenly in a low voice. “It’s all right, Gini. Someone lives here and lives here alone. Listen, it’s a woman—an old woman—and she’s talking to her cats….”

Gini listened: She knew at once he was right. She was trembling, and ashamed of trembling. Pascal’s grip on her hand tightened. He switched on the flashlight and moved toward the steps.

McMullen’s apartment was two flights farther up. From the landing outside his door the crooning was inaudible. Gini leaned against the wall. Outside, the wind buffeted the building; the window creaked.

She heard Pascal give a low exclamation and swung around.

“Gini,” he whispered. “Gini, look at this.”

The door had been unlocked since their earlier visit. It stood open an inch.

Beyond the door was darkness, and silence. Pascal seemed to hesitate. Gini approached. By the open door, the smell of damp decay was sickeningly strong. She recoiled from the stench. Pascal’s face hardened. He put his arm across the doorway.

“You wait here. Wait here on the landing. I’m going in.”

“You’re not leaving me here. I’m coming too….”

“No! You stay right here.”

In the torchlight she saw the pallor of his face, and the anxiety in his eyes. The smell made her want to vomit. She covered her mouth with her hand, walked away a few paces, and drew in a deep breath.

“Gini, please. I don’t want you to come in here.”

“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Pascal.” She grasped his arm. “I’m too afraid to stay here alone. Someone might be in there….”

“Oh, someone’s certainly in there,” he replied, his face grim. “And they’re unlikely to harm us, I think….”

He switched off the beam of the flashlight. Leaning against the door with his arm, and keeping to the side, he eased it back. There was a shuffling sound at their feet; a few pieces of paper, faded bits of card, lifted against the passage of the door, then fell back. Pascal shone the flashlight on them, then again switched it off. He stepped forward into the dark, feeling ahead of him as he went. Gini, following close behind him, also fumbled in the darkness. On either side of her she felt a wall: They were in a long, narrow corridor. There were bare floorboards underfoot.

After twenty or thirty feet—in the darkness she lost all sense of distance—the walls on either side gave out. There was no door, just an archway, hung with a heavy curtain. Pascal eased the drapery aside. She heard the rattle of wooden rings on the rail above her head. She stopped, clutching her mouth.

Later, she would tell herself that she must have known what they would find. But at the time her mind was working slowly: All she could think of was that this space, wherever they were, was terrible, filled with the sweetly sour smell of rotten meat.

Pascal, having worked in war zones, knew precisely what it was. He knew what they must inevitably find. He switched on the flashlight and directed its beam away from the center of the room, toward the walls. He ran the beam along them, until it pinpointed a light switch.

In a quiet voice he said, “Gini. I want you to turn away. I’m going to switch the light on. Don’t look.”

She closed her eyes, and felt the light against her lids. Behind her somewhere, she could hear Pascal’s footsteps, the creak of the floorboards. She heard him say something under his breath. She turned, opened her eyes, and looked.

There were two bodies in the room. Their wrists and their ankles had been bound tight with tape. They had been positioned in a macabre proximity, seated side by side, their backs propped up against a chest. Apart from a table and a chair, it was the only furniture in the room.

The body nearest her she could scarcely bear to look at. She saw the lividity, the discoloration in the face, glanced away, then forced herself to look back.

This body was male, a middle-aged man, fair-haired and slightly built. He was well dressed, in casual but expensive clothes, the condition of his body in stark contrast to the elegant sport jacket, silk tie, and button-down shirt. He wore jeans, loafers, and yellow socks. His body was bloated. Gini covered, then uncovered her face.

The other body, also male, was virtually naked. It was golden-haired, and wore only a pair of blue briefs. There was a single gold earring in its right ear. One of his hands was outstretched, frozen in some last convulsive gesture toward his partner in death. He lolled against his partner’s shoulder in a parody of affection, his head slumped forward. At the base of his skull, where his longish hair had fallen forward, there was a neat hole the size of a quarter or a ten-pence piece.

There was very little blood, just a small encrustation around the wound. Averting her eyes, Gini saw that before he had been killed, this man had been made to undress. His clothes lay on the bare floorboards a few yards from his body. They had been neatly folded and stacked in a pile, the two discarded shoes balanced on top. The clothes outraged her. Had he been made to fold them and stack them, then made to sit down to be shot? Or did someone take the trouble to stack them, as if for a military inspection, after the man was dead?

Pascal was kneeling on the floor beside the men. He examined their wounds, both alike at the base of the head. He examined the inch-wide sticky tape that bound their wrists and ankles. He straightened. He turned to her with a white face. “They were professionally killed. One shot each.”

“But they didn’t die at the same time…”

“Oh, no. This one has been dead a day, perhaps two. The other…” He gave a gesture of anger. “Longer. Considerably longer. It’s cold in here, no heating. …I’d say ten days. Maybe two weeks.” He bent to the clothed man’s body, and examined his fair hair, the signet ring he wore on his left hand.

“McMullen,” he said. “And he’d been dead for some time before the other man was shot. A pleasant way to kill someone, to make them sit down next to that.”

He frowned, as if an idea had just come to him, and looked around the room. “The parcel,” he said, “where’s the parcel? Don’t you see, Gini? McMullen must have been dead before it was even sent…so where is it? Someone took it in.”

He moved quickly across the room, and opened a door at its far side. Gini could see into a small bedroom. Its only contents were a mattress and rugs on the bare floor. Pascal went into the room; she heard the sound of cupboard doors being opened and shut. She knelt down on the floor next to the two bodies. The smell made her retch. She examined the clothed man’s signet ring, and forced herself to look at the distortions decay had made to his face. Easing back his sleeve, she saw he was wearing a gold bracelet, and that the naked man wore another, identical in design. She gave a low moan, and rose to her feet.

Pascal did not hear her reaction. He came back into the room, opened a cupboard door to reveal an electric kettle, some moldering bread, a few cups and plates. He closed it again.

“Where is it?” he said urgently. “The parcel was received all right—by someone. The wrapping is still on the floor in the bedroom. The box is empty.”

“I know what they sent him, Pascal,” she said in a low voice. “It’s there on the floor, just by those clothes. Whoever killed them made use of it. Look. They’ve
applied
it…” Her voice was shaking. With a muttered exclamation, Pascal bent and retrieved a small gold object. He opened it, and held it up.

“A
lipstick?
They sent McMullen a lipstick?”

“I think so. Look. They’ve smeared that man’s face with it. It’s horrible, Pascal. Look.”

Pascal bent. Gently, he lifted the naked man’s head. Someone had applied the lipstick, a bright scarlet one, to his lips. They had drawn a crude cupid’s bow around his mouth; they had used it to rouge his cheeks. It gave him a cruel femininity. His blue eyes were still open. Pascal swore under his breath. “Who would do this? Who is he? If that’s McMullen, who’s this?”

“It’s not McMullen.” Gini turned back. “I know who they are. Both of them. The one wearing the clothes is Johnny Appleyard. I think the other one is his friend. Stevey.”

“Stevey? It can’t be. You spoke to him two days ago—in New York.”

“I think it is him. Do you see—the tape half hides them, but they’re both wearing bracelets. They’re love tokens, Pascal, look.” She turned away. “They have their names on them, and two hearts pierced with an arrow. Johnny and Stevey, Stevey with a ‘y.’ It’s him.”

Pascal’s face grew hard. He said nothing. He examined the bracelets, straightened. “We have to check this place,” he said. “Thoroughly. McMullen could have been here—” He paused. “McMullen could have done this, come to that. Gini, won’t you wait outside?”

“No.” Averting her eyes, she crossed the room. “I’ll check through here. There might be something you missed.”

There was nothing in the bedroom she could see, just that mattress, a few blankets. She lifted them to one side, but they concealed nothing. They smelled of decay, and damp. Beyond the bedroom there was a primitive bathroom: a lavatory, a leaking shower, a cracked washbasin. No towels, no soap.

She returned to the main room. Pascal was kneeling beside the dead Appleyard; she saw him reach inside his jacket and extract a wallet. She averted her eyes; sickness rose in her stomach. She crossed to the cupboard Pascal had already opened. An electric kettle, some moldering bread, cups and plates, all washed. There was a small sink, and above it two wooden shelves with some battered containers.

She opened each one in turn: instant coffee, tea bags, sugar, a packet of salt, some rice, and some pasta. She stared at these objects, trying to read them. Someone must have meant to stay there for a while. If you were staying just a night or two, would you provide pasta, rice? Had McMullen meant to stay there, then changed his plans in a hurry? She moved the box of damp salt an inch or so, and then she saw that behind it was a paperback book.

She took it down and stared at it. Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
That book, that same book, had been one of those on the desk in his London flat.

Her hands trembling now, she began to turn the pages, but there was no piece of paper concealed inside the leaves of the book, nothing written there that she could see, no name, no markings of any kind.

“Gini.” Pascal called to her in a low voice. “Come here. Look at this.” He had been kneeling by that neat pile of clothes. Now he stood. “Both their wallets are here, with money, credit cards, everything. I thought there was nothing else. Then I found this. It was under this pile of clothes. Look.”