The Siren's Sting (27 page)

Her telephone beeped; there was a message from David Rice.
Headed Venice. Your mission terminated as of now. Get ashore where you
can. See you in London. D.

Stevie stared out at the horizon, eyes searching eternity for a different answer to the one she already knew she would give. She turned back to Henning, her short blonde hair ruffling in the wind like feathers. ‘Why, Venice, of course.'

14

The late summer storms hung
in the sky like a hem of black lace, shedding water over a city already sinking. The lagoon had turned pewter in the half-light, and the
vaporetti
, their lights glowing in the gloom, bucked the wind as they ferried back and forth. Stevie leant into the red leather seat of her water taxi and looked out at La Serenissima through the downpour. The raindrops dragged down the earthy colours of the
palazzi
, the Moorish window frames, the hidden gardens, heavy as chain mail, into the canals. In this weather, the floating city seemed sad, awash, doomed.

Stevie's phone beeped. A message from Rice:
Caffè Florian
at 1800
. She tossed the phone back into her bag. David had been rather cross when he had heard she was in Venice, but she had explained that she was now aboard the
Petrina
and could not get ashore until Venice. It was, she suggested, a happy coincidence that he too would be in Venice and they ought to meet. He had been suspicious, but reluctantly agreed. A message had arrived not long after their discussion, this time from Josie. Stevie and Rice would be attending the party at Lord Sacheverel's
palazzo
—a
ballo mascherato
. ‘Bring mask' had been the instruction from her colleague in London. It seemed like a very long time since Stevie had seen David, and his reassuring figure was just the thing she needed to dispel the last of the fright she had had in Corsica. He would make her feel invincible again; she could always count on that.

The gondolas in their blue rain jackets bobbed and strained at their moorings as the water taxi pulled up to the dock of her hotel. Stevie took the captain's hand and leapt ashore. The grey-green water from the lagoon was sloshing up into the streets, and the cobbled
calle
felt like it too was rocking and tossing underfoot.
Too many
boats
, thought Stevie.
I need some dry land
. Venice did not count. It was a halfway point between water and earth, a miracle creation built on wooden poles sunk in mud, a city of shifting surfaces.

She was shown to her room, a small golden chamber with red velvet curtains overlooking a busy canal. She opened the windows and leant out, listening to the city. The sound of the rain beating down on the opal waters of the canal, the traffic noise of the police launches, the fire-fighting boats, the boats delivering laundry, cooking oil—everything—mingled with the voices of the people hurrying through the deep alleys.

The
palazzo
just opposite was painted a deep rust red, with green shutters and green and white striped poles marking its water door. Although it was only afternoon, the light was dim because of the rain and cloud. The lighted windows on the
piano nobile
looked out onto the canal, a small balcony jutting out over the water. Stevie wondered how it must feel to live on the water, surrounded by water, in an ancient building that would have seen so much. What would it be like to have king tides flood your sitting room, to go to work in a speedboat, to live in one of the greatest stage sets the world had ever seen?

Stevie turned her back on the view and went into the bathroom. She drew a steaming hot bath and slid in with a sigh. She soaked her hands and tried to remove the last of the dried blood. The right hand didn't look too bad; the left was still a bit of a mess. Could she get away with a glove? she wondered. Stevie had been surprised to learn that David was flying in for the ball—there had to be more behind it than a simple desire for amusement. The group from the
Hercules
cruising party would be there, along with a few from the
Petrina
. Stevie was not looking forward to seeing some of the familiar faces.

Still, a masked ball with David sounded rather delightful, despite the tempest outside, and the monsters to encounter. Stevie's boss looked particularly handsome in black tie. She would have to buy a mask at one of the many tiny shops that sold them to tourists. As for a ballgown, well that was unfortunately not possible given she had packed for a cruise. However, the full-length black and silver Missoni kaftan in silk might just do . . .

When she had dried and dressed she rang for housekeeping to have the kaftan pressed and went out into the wet streets. She was ravenous and it was absolutely necessary that she eat. She found a small restaurant half hidden down a narrow
calle
where there was no English language menu, nor any photographs of the dishes displayed outside. Stevie thought this might be a good sign. She ordered squid cooked in their ink and ate everything on her plate. The waiter brought her a glass of contraband
fragolino
wine that tasted of strawberries, and her spirits began to rise. All in all, she had emerged from her mission relatively unscathed, her debt to Rice discharged, her job done.

All that remained was to tell her boss everything she knew about Clémence's situation, and what she had discovered about Krok along the way. She listed the points to herself: 1) He ran mercenaries all over the world with a lucrative side trade in weapons and military ordnance that mined the back channels, the people no legal arms manufacturer was allowed to trade with. 2) He ran this trade with partners: Socrates Skorpios, Dado Falcone and the late Aldo Meienfeldt. 3) Krok was somehow involved in the plague of pirate attacks off Somalia and Cape Horn, possibly Nigeria—a well-connected accomplice handled the ransoms, name as yet unknown. 4) He also sold ‘invisible' speedboats for smuggling contraband and, the thought occurred to Stevie, possibly for use in future pirate attacks. 5) Krok was arrogant, vain, unpredictable, ruthless and cruel—a very dangerous combination. Altogether, Stevie reflected, it was a very unlovely picture; the man was practically a psychopath.

All this information, Rice could decide what to do with. She was done.

By the time she left the restaurant, the rain had begun to pour down again and the
calle
was dark. With every footfall, Venice seemed to sink deeper into the sea. Stevie found a little shop among a maze of smooth stone alleys, boarded windows; the smell of rotting canal water was strong here. She went in and looked at the masks. At first tempted by the rhinestone, ribbon and pearl extravaganza in the window, in the end she chose the most understated mask she could find: a black and white Pierrette.

A little before six, Stevie
caught a water taxi to the Florian. As it docked, she thanked the captain and leapt nimbly onto the shore. The silk Missoni kaftan rippled and danced like mercury in the wind, and she wore large amber bangles on her wrists and flat leather sandals; only the uninitiated ever wore heels in Venice. The cobblestones would break your ankle if the shifting jetties didn't first. Wellington boots might have been more appropriate, she thought, as thunder rumbled across the sky then cracked into a jagged shaft of lightning. The strange light of storm weather had turned the lagoon an opaque shade of jade green and fingers of red now shot out from an invisible setting sun. It was weather fit for the end of the world.

She hurried into the covered
arcata
as the heavens opened and sluiced the city with more water. The marble floor, worn by so many millions of feet, was slippery with rain. Stevie dodged a conga line of tourists, snaking past in identical cheap plastic raincoats with pointed hoods.
Tout comme les préservatifs
. The phrase came to her in French, and she smiled. She brushed her hair back off her forehead and hoped her eyeliner had not run. She wanted David to see an elegant woman before him, rather than a drowned rat.

He was waiting for her in a dim corner of the bar. Stevie felt a flush of pleasure as she closed the door behind her and moved towards his table. David stood and kissed her on both cheeks, handsome as ever, and smelling rather intoxicatingly of sandalwood shaving soap. ‘How are you, Stevie?' he asked with genuine affection, his voice low and gravelly. Stevie would have liked to hug him but knew he would consider it unseemly. She sat opposite, drawing back her shoulders and lifting her chin ever so slightly. All presence began with good posture—her grandmother was very strict about posture—and Stevie tried hard to keep it in mind.

‘What will you have, Stevie?'

‘A Negroni,' she answered, gesturing to his half-empty glass.

‘
Due Negroni, per favore
,' Rice said to the hovering waiter. Despite speaking Italian with a very English accent, no one would have dared to treat Rice as a tourist. His every movement exuded suppressed power, and total control. The man was a lion.

‘I have quite a bit to tell you,' Stevie said as the drinks arrived.

‘I rather assumed you would, Stevie.'

Stevie took a sip of her drink: gin, Martini Rosso and Campari. It was strong and she was glad of it. ‘Clémence Krok's husband is a madman,' she began. It was the only way she could describe Krok. ‘He has a dictator's sense of destiny, cunning and craving for power, coupled with the tyrant's classic paranoia and ruthlessness. He has an added penchant for cruelty and games that tends to spice things up a bit.'

Rice sat back. ‘Ah,' he said quietly.

‘Yes, Clémence is not crazy. Although her husband is out to make people think she is. He plans to have her committed to some Austrian clinic, and she is terrified that she will never come out.'

Rice said nothing, his lined face set in stone now and all traces of warmth gone. The grey light outside was fading; the waiter brought a candle. The soft, dancing light only exaggerated the shadows under David's eyes, the hollows in his cheeks. He had aged; his face above the crisp white of his shirt looked tired.

‘David,' Stevie started, extending her left hand towards his. He didn't seem to hear her and her hand, losing confidence, stopped short of completing the journey. He woke abruptly from his reverie and glanced down; Stevie had gone for the single glove in the end. After all, it was a masked ball.

‘What happened to you on that ship?' he said, his voice almost a whisper. He was looking at a large scratch on her wrist that even the glove could not hide. Stevie stared at him: didn't he know? She had told him about the diving incident—though not yet, she realised, about the cliff fall. Still, that was not, she sensed, what he meant. She filled him in—rather hurriedly—on everything she had discovered about her host; David listened in silence. ‘And the glove?' he asked finally, as if everything Stevie had told him meant nothing. ‘You have too much style to wear that for no reason,' he added.

‘Someone tried to kill me in Bonifacio,' Stevie said quietly. ‘Someone tried to push me off the cliffs. I'm pretty sure of it.' She watched his face. ‘The glove is to hide my rather mangled nails.' She described what had happened, eating three olives, one after the other, as she did. To her surprise and horror, she saw his eyes moisten with tears. Instantly she forgot her own fears and feelings— something had to be horribly wrong if David was tearing up. Then the liquid shine disappeared and the steel returned to Rice's gaze.

‘This time it was my fault and that is unforgivable. I knew Krok was dangerous but I never thought he would go after you.' He glanced up at her. ‘How did he know?'

‘Know what?'

‘That you were not what you seemed to be—just a friend of his wife.'

Stevie had wondered about this. She had decided that it was unlikely that Krok had found out her secret. It wasn't his style to say nothing, and Clémence would have warned her if he had. Possibly his paranoia had driven him to unfocused suspicions about her, but there really was no satisfactory answer to this. If he had thought that she was an enemy or someone dangerous to him, he would have killed her, certainly. But he would not have failed, and certainly not twice. A bullet to the head while she was sleeping was all it would have taken. Burn the pillow and sink the body. Easy. No, the attempts on her life had been too subtle for a man like Vaughan Krok.

‘There was no one else on board who would care what I do—or am . . .' She took another sip of her drink. ‘His security men would hardly have acted without explicit orders. And he doesn't look like he would make a mistake, let alone two. Something doesn't feel right. Or so it seems to me, anyway.' Stevie turned her glass in her hands. ‘So, what's tonight about?'

Rice gave her a long, searching look then drained his glass. ‘Lord Sacheverel is having a party at his
palazzo
for some Biennale bigwigs from the States. I believe Angelina Dracoulis will perform.'

‘Ah, La Dracoulis. She's rather magnificent. Have you ever seen her?'

When David ignored the question, Stevie, suspicious now, asked, ‘So, who is this Lord Sacheverel? A friend?' She raised a careful eyebrow.

David glared at a point somewhere over Stevie's shoulder and clenched his jaw. ‘Sacheverel was an admiral in the Royal Navy, a man of not insignificant independent means, Maltese mother, superior to the point of arrogance and with a serious sadistic streak. He lives in London, with offices in an old submarine moored on the Thames. He has connections to all sorts of unsavoury people, mainly organised crime syndicates. MI5 tell me he was behind the syndicate that left all those illegal cockle pickers to drown on the sand bar in Cornwall.'

‘So,' Stevie said cautiously, ‘if he's such a vile man, why are we going to his party?' Rice was silent. ‘I deserve to know, David, don't you think?'

Rice ordered two more drinks and waited until they arrived before he replied. ‘I'm not expecting any trouble, Stevie, or I'd never have agreed to take you with me.' When Stevie didn't comment, Rice went on. ‘Sacheverel has been trying to buy Hazard for some time now. I have refused repeatedly, despite the financial and logistical pressure we are under from the pirate attacks on our ships. I have no intention of selling up, and if I did, it would certainly not be to a man like Sacheverel.'