The Lizard's Bite (11 page)

“It was in all the papers, Leo!” she objected. “Surely you must remember. There was a terrible scandal. A piece of music — a wonderful piece of music by the way, I’ve heard it — was peddled as something it wasn’t. First Massiter was responsible. Then he wasn’t. Some Englishman and his girlfriend hoodwinked him, apparently.”

“So I understand,” said the implacable voice on the line. “And people died.”

She’d forgotten that part somehow. It was the music that stayed in her head. The small professional orchestras playing for the tourists now made it a centerpiece of their repertoire, one that was almost as popular as the Seasons. Just as memorable, and fresher somehow.

“People died. It was nothing to do with Hugo Massiter. The papers all said that in the end. Why would he have returned to Venice otherwise? You’re a police officer. You should surely know more about this than me.”

“I should,” Leo Falcone conceded. “And tomorrow?”

She looked at the pasta pot and the cloud of steam finding the window, working its way out towards the iron angel, whose flame burned once more, flickering in the wind, devouring gas they could ill afford. Raffaella Arcangelo wondered how many meals she’d cooked over the years, how much of her life had been spent serving in this kitchen.

“Tomorrow they can feed themselves for a change,” she said.

A
RMS GINGERLY INTERLOCKED, NIC COSTA AND EMILY Deacon walked the short distance from the small apartment in Castello to the waterfront by Giardini. It was just ten minutes from here to Peroni’s restaurant in the backstreets, beyond the Arsenale. They needed some time to themselves. More than the evening’s dinner with Peroni and Teresa — and Leo Falcone along as self-invited guest — would allow.

Emily wound herself free and took a table outside a small café. They ordered a couple of overpriced coffees, the cost enhanced by the unencumbered view of the lagoon. The deep yellow stain of the sun was now flooding down from the mountains that rippled the distant horizon of terra firma and everything — the lagoon, the city, the reflections of buildings in the dappled water — took on its warm, rich hue. Sometimes, when he was alone with nothing better to do, Costa would catch the slow vaporetto, number one, up the Grand Canal just to catch the moment, and watch the quiet wonder it created in the eyes of his fellow travellers, even, from time to time, a few Venetians.

“Tell me about the case, Nic,” she suggested. “As much as you can. It must be important if they’re cancelling leave.”

Costa couldn’t forget that Emily was making a fundamental shift in her career. Trying to put away her lost career, as an FBI agent kicked out of the Bureau for insubordination, and replace it with a future as an architect, in a foreign country too. All the same, her past still lived with her. She was always curious, always interested in a challenge. It was one of the facets of her complex, multifaceted personality that intrigued him.

“It’s the usual story. A family affair. A man kills his wife. Then either kills himself, or dies accidentally. We don’t know yet.”

“It sounds straightforward.”

But this was Venice, he thought. Or, more accurately, Murano, a place that welcomed the prying eyes of investigators even less.

“I think so. By the way, we have an invitation to a party tomorrow night. Hugo Massiter. The Englishman with the boat. Does the name ring a bell?”

She looked baffled. “No. Should it?”

“Five years ago. There was a scandal.”

“Five years ago I was in Washington trying to be someone else,” she said quickly. “And when aren’t there scandals?”

He must have looked downcast.

“I’m sorry, Nic. Do you really think I should have heard of him?”

“I have,” he replied. “And I want to know the details. Before we meet him again. He sees himself as a player in the city. He’s buying the Arcangeli’s island on Murano, where those people died. Tomorrow night we’re invited to a party there. He’s renovating it apparently. It’s going to be a gallery.”

Emily’s forehead grew even more furrowed. “This is the Isola degli Arcangeli you’re talking about?”

“You’ve heard of that?”

“Anyone who’s studied modern Italian architecture has heard of it. It’s one of the great follies of the twentieth century.” Her blue eyes were bright with anticipation. “That place is supposed to be amazing. They’ve kept the public out for years. I thought it was unsafe.”

“Not with the work Hugo Massiter’s having done.”

“He’s buying it? I would have thought a site like that would end up being the property of the city. It’s a kind of local monument. An odd one, a forgotten one, but all the same…”

Costa recalled Massiter’s quiet complaints of penury, and the Englishman’s obvious closeness to local officials.

“Perhaps there was a small arrangement. I don’t know. He certainly hopes to own it now. He seems a little short of cash too. Does that add up?”

“If he’s trying to restore a failed project like that, you bet. I’ve read up on the Isola degli Arcangeli, Nic. Everyone who hopes to get an architecture degree in Italy does. It’s mandatory, an object lesson in what happens when you’re more interested in design than structure. Much of it was judged to be fundamentally unsound from the outset. If I recall correctly, the man who came up with most of the plans wasn’t even a professional architect. A couple of people got badly hurt there in a roof collapse twenty years or so ago. It’s been closed to the public ever since. You have to be talking about a big, big project getting it back to something close to usable.”

Massiter did seem desperate, perhaps in more ways than he was admitting. And he wasn’t bluffing about the deadline to conclude the deal with the Arcangeli either.

“Rich men’s toys,” he murmured.

“Some toy,” she said, eyes glittering. “I’d give anything to see inside. And we’re going to a party there?”

But it was just another old building, he wanted to say. In a city full of them. Nic Costa was no boor. He appreciated Venice. He loved many of the sights. Still, there was something about the place that disturbed him. Nothing moved. Nothing changed in the lethargic melancholy of the lagoon. Even the people seemed to think their small, mundane lives would run on forever, trapped in the bright wash of the sky that flooded over them.

“I must be coming up in the world,” he murmured.

“
We
must be coming up in the world,” she corrected him quietly.

He brushed aside the soft hair from her cheek, and kissed her again, more slowly this time, pleased to feel her responding.

“We…” he whispered, “… must eat.”

“Do we have to?” she murmured.

There was no choice. Falcone had ordered a chair at the table for a reason. Besides, something told Nic Costa he needed to be on his guard. Perhaps for all of them. Peroni was winding down into holiday mode. Falcone seemed to believe everything, while more complex than it appeared at first, would be a piece of cake. To him, Venice was a backwater, a place where a city cop could wipe the floor with the locals. Costa wasn’t so certain.

“We do,” he said. “Just for a while.”

T
HE RESTAURANT WAS DOWN A BACK ALLEY BETWEEN Arsenale and the main drag of Castello, the Via Garibaldi, a quarter of working-class houses not far from the police apartments. Peroni found it within a week of their arrival in the city. He had an uncanny sense about where to eat, and a way of buttering up the staff too. Two sisters, big, friendly women, ran the place. Their daughters, pretty teenagers, worked the ten cramped tables, each with four settings, that filled the dark interior. Most nights Nic and Peroni had to queue — though not for long; his partner’s quick wit had soon seen to that. But this was August, when hordes of locals abandoned the city for somewhere cooler. There was only one other group in the place, so Peroni pulled together a couple of tables at the far end of the room to give the five of them plenty of space and privacy, listened, beaming with pleasure, to the brief list of evening specials, then sat back to enjoy the meal, a man in gastronomic heaven.

Nic Costa knew good eating when he saw it and this was good, seriously good, in a way they rarely found in Venice because it was all utterly authentic, as close to home cooking as they were likely to get outside a private house. Costa’s vegetarianism had now relaxed to the extent that he ate fish, principally because it was so good there. A plate of pasta with tiny brown shrimps was the first course for each of them, some crisp, fresh rocket on the side. Peroni had insisted on
stinchi
for the meat eaters, ham hocks slowly roasted in garlic and oil. Costa had decided to stick with the gorgeous
sarde in saor
, fresh sardines slowly marinated with vinegar, oil, onions, pine nuts and sultanas, a Venetian speciality the two sisters prepared themselves, and one which couldn’t be bettered anywhere in the city. Even Leo Falcone looked content once he’d pulled a bad-tempered face at the house red, a weedy Veneto makeweight pumped straight from the barrel, and replaced it with a couple of bottles of fancy Amarone from behind the counter.

Then Falcone pushed away his plate, with that wily expression on his face that always made Costa uneasy, smiled at Teresa Lupo and said, “Spontaneous combustion. You’re a pathologist. Have you ever met a case? Is it rare?”

She gagged on her ham joint and stared at him, dumbfounded. “‘Spontaneous combustion’?”

Falcone pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and placed it on the table. Teresa picked it up, began reading, looked at the official crest on the top, then choked again.

“He’s quite an old pathologist they have here,” Falcone disclosed. “Seems knowledgeable. According to him Uriel Arcangelo died of spontan—”

“What next?” she interrupted. “Are we going to have people expiring of witchcraft or something? Did you find any wax dolls with pins in them lying around, Leo? Are you going to give up forensics and use a Ouija board instead? Good God…” She put down her knife and fork, a sign that she was surely taking the matter seriously. “You cannot allow this to be recorded as a stated cause of death. I won’t allow it. You’ll be a laughingstock. Every nut magazine and TV programme on the planet will be after you.”

Falcone beamed back at her, unruffled. “The pathologist here, Tosi, said it’s a documented phenomenon. There was even a case in Dickens.
Bleak House
, I believe…”

Teresa’s voice rose to an angry howl. “Dickens wrote fiction, for Christ’s sake! I’m a pathologist. I deal in science, not mumbo jumbo. Listen to what I am saying. Regardless of some ancient British author’s opinions to the contrary,
there is no such thing as spontaneous combustion
. It is physically impossible. A myth. A fantasy. The kind of thing that should be filed alongside alien abductions, telepathy and stigmata.”

“All matters which some people believe in. With documented cases…” he repeated.

“No, no, no! Look. This is just part of the fashion for irrational bullshit that poor bastards like me have to put up with these days. People hate a world that’s logical, rational, and largely capable of explanation. So they fill it with this crap because it makes them feel safe at night somehow, thinking that there really are ghosts and flying saucers out there, and we’re not just what we appear. A collection of atoms wandering through the world waiting for the day we start to fall apart. You cannot—”

“Tosi’s adamant he’s going to put that on the death certificate,” Falcone pressed.

“Stop him! Please! It’s not possible. The man must be gaga or something.”

Peroni put down his knife and fork and stabbed a finger at Falcone. “If Teresa says it’s not possible, Leo…”

“You heard Randazzo!” Falcone objected. “We just do as we’re told. Sign off the papers. Then go home early. Besides, we’ve got a witness statement from this
garzone
who saw Uriel Arcangelo die. He was on fire.”

Falcone’s incisive, birdlike eyes peered out at them from that familiar, walnut face. He was engrossed by this case, Costa realized, and would surely refuse to let go with his talons until he got to the bottom of what had happened on the Isola degli Arcangeli.

“Fire, the witness said, that came
from inside him
,” the inspector continued. “Fire’s combustion, isn’t it? It sounds spontaneous to me.”

“Oh no!” Teresa wagged a finger in Falcone’s impassive brown face. “I know what you’re trying to do. I’m off duty here. You’re not stealing my holiday the way you stole
theirs
. This is down to you, Leo. If the pathologist you’ve got believes in fairies, that’s your problem. Go take an aromatherapy course and deal with it.”

“He seems a rational man,” Falcone replied mildly. “A little traditional. A little set in his ways, perhaps. You have to remember he doesn’t have your kind of experience. Murder and Venice rarely meet. Tosi knows that too. He was very flattering about you when I mentioned we’d worked together.”

He poured some more wine and left it at that, with Teresa gagging for the rest of the compliment. “He’s heard of me?”

Falcone held the glass up to the light, admiring the deep red penumbra it cast on the white tablecloth. “First thing he said when I told him I came from Rome. ‘Do you know Dr. Lupo? Did you read about the wonderful work she did on the body from the bog?’”

“Leo…” Peroni growled.

“All I’m saying,” he continued, “is that if Teresa here would like to take a look at this case of spontaneous combustion…”

“Don’t use that phrase,” she cautioned menacingly. “Don’t even utter the words.”

“If you wished to take a peek at the body, I don’t think it would be a problem.”

Teresa Lupo reached over, snatched the expensive bottle from his grasp, then tried to pour herself a glass. The bottle was empty.

“Hard to make a decision without a drink,” she announced.

Falcone sniffed and stared at the label on the Amarone. Dal Forno Romano, one of the best, and fifteen degrees proof. Costa’s late father had had a taste for that one. It was, he had said, like Barolo, a fighting wine.