The Abomination
Authors: Jonathan Holt
There is within every man and woman a core of evil only lightly held in check. Whether we call it savagery, brutality or barbarism; whether we give it some scientific-sounding label such as sadism or psychosis; whether we ascribe it to amorality or the Devil himself, it is, nevertheless, mankind's constant companion. Most of the time it sleeps, invisible and unheeded, within our breasts, and we call ourselves civilised and pretend it is not there. But only give us cause to wake the beast â give us unlimited power, for example, over our fellow man, and tell us there will be no repercussions from exercising it â and we will every one of us prove capable of acts more terrible than the imagination can conceive.
And each time we will wake, as if from a dream, saying “Never again”, and each time we will lie.
Dr Paul Doherty MRCPsych
Prologue
Venice, January 5
THE LITTLE BOAT
slipped away from the quayside, its two-stroke outboard no more than a quiet splutter at the stern. Ricci, tending the throttle, steered carefully around the fishing boats and out-of-season gondolas that cluttered the tiny boatyard. He made this trip out to the lagoon every evening, ostensibly to check his crab pots. Few people knew that his excursions sometimes netted a more lucrative catch as well: packages tightly wrapped in blue plastic, attached by persons and vessels unseen to the buoys that marked each pot's location.
As the boat left the island of Giudecca behind he stooped to light a cigarette. “
à sicuro
,” he said quietly into the flame. It's safe.
His passenger came up from the cramped cabin without replying. He was dressed for the weather â dark waterproofs, gloves, a woollen hat pulled low over his eyes. In his left hand he still held the metal case with which he'd boarded. A little larger than a briefcase, and oblong, it reminded Ricci of the cases musicians kept their instruments in. Except he was fairly sure his passenger tonight was no musician.
An hour earlier Ricci had taken a call on his
cellulare
. The same voice that usually told him how many packages to look out for informed him that tonight he'd be carrying a passenger. It had been on Ricci's lips to retort that there were plenty of water taxis in Venice, and that his fishing boat wasn't one of them, but something made the comment die in his throat. In all the time he'd been getting orders from the voice, he'd never heard it sound frightened before. Not even when the instructions had been to take a weighted body-shaped package out to the furthest regions of the lagoon and heave it over the side, for the crabs to feast on.
From their left came the sound of splashing, shouts. Several wooden craft, powered by oars, were racing through the water towards them. Ricci reduced the engine, idling.
“What is it?” The first words his passenger had spoken. His Italian, Ricci noted, was heavily accented. An American.
“Don't worry. It's not for us. It's for La Befana. They're practising their racing.” As the boats neared, one could see they were filled with what appeared to be women, in huge frocks and bonnets; only as they passed did it become apparent that these were teams of rowers, dressed incongruously in female costumes. “They'll be gone in a minute,” he added. Sure enough, the boats rounded a buoy and headed back for Venice, one narrowly ahead.
The passenger grunted. He'd ducked down as the rowers approached, clearly intent on not being seen. Now he stood at the prow with one hand on the rail, scanning the horizon as Ricci opened up the throttle.
It took an hour to reach the crab pots. There was nothing attached to any of the lines, nor had any boats come to meet them from the other side. It was dark now, but Ricci kept his lights turned off. In the distance, the humps of a few small islands broke the horizon line.
His companion spoke. “Which one's Poveglia?”
Ricci pointed. “That one.”
“Take me.”
Without another word Ricci set a course. There were some, he knew, who'd have refused, or asked for more money. Most of the fishermen gave the little island of Poveglia a very wide berth. But for exactly that reason it was a useful place for a small-time smuggler to be familiar with, and he sometimes landed there at night to pick up cargoes too large to be tied to a buoy â crates of cigarettes or whisky, the occasional shivering Eastern European girl and her pimp. Even so, he rarely lingered longer than he had to.
Unconsciously Ricci crossed himself, no more aware of the gesture than he was of the tiny adjustments he was making to the outboard as he steered a complex course through the sandbanks and shallows that littered this part of the lagoon. Then came a stretch of open water, and the boat jumped forward. Freezing spray lashed their faces as they crashed from wave to wave, but the man in the prow seemed hardly to notice.
Eventually Ricci slowed. The island was just ahead of them now, silhouetted against the purple-black sky, the clock tower of the abandoned hospital piercing the trees. A few faint dots of light flickered amongst the ruins â candles, perhaps, in one of the rooms. So it was a rendezvous, after all. No one lived on Poveglia, not any more.
Kneeling, Ricci's passenger unlatched the metal case. Ricci caught a glimpse of a barrel, a black rifle stock, a line of bullets, all packed neatly into their allotted spaces. But it was a night-sight, fat as a camera lens, that the man pulled out first. He raised it to his eye as he stood, steadying himself against the boat's movement.
For a moment he remained looking in the direction of the lights. Then he gestured to Ricci to head towards the jetty, leaping impatiently but noiselessly onto the shore even before the boat touched land, the metal case still in his hand.
Later, Ricci would wonder if he'd heard any shots. But then he recalled the other tube he'd glimpsed in the case â a silencer, even longer and fatter than the night-sight. So it must have been his imagination.
His passenger was gone just fifteen minutes, and they rode back to Giudecca in silence.
THE PARTY IN
the dimly lit Venetian
bacaro
had been going on for almost five hours, and the volume level was still rising. The good-looking young man who was trying to get off with Katerina Tapo wasn't so much chatting her up as shouting her up: the two of them had to stand very close and bellow alternately into each other's ears just to be heard, which, while it certainly robbed their flirting of any subtlety, also meant she was left in little doubt of his intentions. That was no bad thing, Kat decided. Only those who really fancied each other would persevere with small talk in such difficult conditions. For her part, she'd already made the decision that Eduardo â or was it Gesualdo? â would be coming back later to her tiny two-room apartment in Mestre.
Eduardo, or possibly Gesualdo, wanted to know what she did for a living. “I'm a travel agent,” she yelled back.
He nodded. “Cool. Get to travel much yourself?”
“A bit,” she shouted.
She felt her phone buzz against her thigh. It was set to ring, but such was the noise around them she hadn't heard it. Pulling it out, she saw she'd missed three calls already. “
Un momento
,” she shouted into it. Indicating to her companion she'd be back in a minute, she struggled down the crowded steps of the bar into the open air.
Mother of Christ, it was cold. Around her a few hardy smokers were braving the chill: her own mouth barked steam almost as thick as their smoke as she turned back to the phone. “
Si? Pronto?
”
“There's a body,” Francesco's voice said. “You're on it. I just spoke to Allocation.”
“Homicide?” She struggled to keep the excitement out of her voice.
“Could be. Whatever it is, it's going to be a big one.”
“Why's that?”
Francesco didn't answer her directly. “I'm texting the address. Near the Salute. You'll meet Colonnello Piola at the scene. Good luck. And remember, you owe me for this.” He rang off.
She glanced at the screen. No address yet, but if it was near the church of Santa Maria della Salute she'd need to catch the
vaporetto
. Even so, she was probably twenty minutes away, and that was assuming she didn't go home to change first, which she definitely ought to, given what she was wearing. Damn, she decided, there was no time for that. She'd do her coat up tight and hope Piola didn't wonder too much at her bare legs or her party make-up. It was La Befana, after all â January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, but also a celebration in honour of the old witch who brings children sweets or lumps of coal depending on how naughty they've been â and the whole city was out having a good time.