The Venetian Venture (13 page)

The pair gave a collective sigh and stared pensively at their wine. Cedric and Felix felt it was time to leave.

‘Rescued sailors from the storm-torn Atlantic and yet couldn’t fish out that youth from a sleepy canal in Venice,’ Felix exclaimed. ‘Sounds pretty rum to me!’

‘Yes, yes it does rather,’ Cedric agreed. ‘But as you rightly said it has nothing to do with us … Perhaps tomorrow after we have phoned Rosy Gilchrist a little potter on the Lido might be congenial: a tribute to Mann’s Aschenbach as it were.’

‘Hmm,’ said Felix doubtfully, ‘and he came to a sticky end too.’

‘Then we must avoid the deckchairs.’

The next day Felix had persuaded Cedric to accompany Caruso and himself to the flower market before embarking on their visit to the Lido. ‘We don’t need to get there before midday,’ he had said, ‘and the gardenias in the salon need refreshing. We can leave the dog at home when we go off but he really ought to be given a walk first.’ Cedric had agreed, and the three of them set out to garner the flowers and inspect the fish on the nearby stalls. Caruso wasn’t fond of fish (Felix had tried him) but for some reason seemed to like its smell. Thus he trundled along amiably, sniffing the air and grunting approval.

As they neared one of their favourite cafés Felix suggested they went in for an espresso. ‘Huh,’ Cedric said, ‘I doubt if you’ll stop at an espresso; bound to want one of those almond cream things you are always drooling over.’

‘I might,’ retorted his friend carelessly. ‘Got to line my stomach for lunch somehow, it doesn’t do to drink on empty. Besides the dog needs a rest, hasn’t found its second wind yet.’

He pulled the animal towards the café. And as he stood hovering on the pavement debating which would be better, an inside or outside table, a tall figure appeared in the doorway. It was Guy Hope-Landers.

He greeted them enthusiastically. ‘I say what a happy coincidence! I saw you from the window. Giving the hound its constitutional I see. Do come and join us.’ He laughed loudly and before they had a chance to say yea or nay had hustled them in through the open door.

Cedric was a trifle surprised at such early morning effusions and wondered who the other parts of the ‘us’ would be. He saw immediately. It was Lucia Borgino. She was sitting at a corner table swathed unrelievedly in black; skin luminously pale (thick eyeliner, no lipstick) and looking immensely stylish. She also looked immensely peeved to see the newcomers. Presumably her companion’s welcoming rush to the door had not been her idea.

Feeling rather uncomfortable Cedric and Felix took their seats at the table. Felix bent down to the floor and made great play of settling the dog and tying its lead to the leg of his chair – and then untying it and starting again. By absorbing himself in such essential manoeuvres he was able to leave the task of commiseration to Cedric.

The latter discharged his duty deftly and kindly but his words were clearly of scant interest to Lucia. ‘Most thoughtful,’ she murmured indifferently, and proceeded to give orders to the waitress about the level of froth on her cappuccino.

A pencil and folded copy of
The Times
lay in Hope-Landers’ place; and having completed his fumblings with the leash and chair leg Felix noticed this and was rather shocked. Was the man still filling in clues at this delicate time? No
wonder the Borgino woman looked sour! But then he saw sticking out from under the newspaper a notebook. Its owner must have seen his glance, for picking it up he said, ‘It’s bad enough Lucia having to cope with the awfulness of the tragedy itself but there are so many
functional
matters to attend to as well. We’ve been trying to list some of the more pressing ones, or at least I have. Poor Lucia is still rather too numbed to concern herself with practicalities.’

‘He means shipping the corpse and paying the creditors,’ the numbed sister said with startling brutality. ‘All that boring business.’ She turned to the other: ‘I keep telling you, Guy, grandfather and his solicitors are dealing with the whole of that palaver. He likes doing it, increases his sense of power. And the executors have already fixed the funeral – a service at Paddington Crematorium I believe. Something quick and quiet. The last thing one wants is to hear some lugubrious priest prosing on endlessly … In fact the only thing that I have got to do is to decide on the flowers. Grandfather says that should be my responsibility though I really can’t see why.’ She looked at Felix. ‘You’re some sort of florist aren’t you? Manage a shop or something I gather. What do you suggest – or doesn’t your firm service the funeral trade?’

Hope-Landers’ face showed a look of mild dismay and Cedric froze. The dismissive tone had been gratuitously insolent and he knew Felix would be incensed. The Royal Appointment’s gilded lettering flashed before his eyes and he shot a covert glance at his friend trying to gauge his reaction and expecting to see the familiar flush of fury. He just hoped the retort would not be too violent.

Felix (who as predicted had succumbed to the almond gateau) laid down his fork and with face unflushed appeared to cogitate. And then he said: ‘I do indeed manage a shop,
Mrs Borgia, and funerals are
absolutely
my forte. And as to your brother’s, I would strongly recommend pansies – pink pansies. In fact the pinker the better. Couldn’t be more fitting.’ And smiling primly he returned to the almond cream.

There was an explosive silence during which Cedric noted Hope-Landers’ mouth twitch gently, while Lucia gazed at Felix in unconcealed anger. But there was nothing she could say and he continued to sample his cake with dedicated relish.

‘I don’t think she likes you,’ said Cedric thoughtfully as they retraced their steps through the flower market.

‘She’s not meant to,’ replied Felix with satisfaction. ‘I can’t think why Guy Hope-Landers wastes his time with such an arrogant bitch.’

‘He’s useful to her as an escort and is too good-natured, or too lazy, to ditch her. Some men are like that: they let things ride – a tiresome state of affairs but less painful than the trauma of confrontation.’

‘So I suppose that’s why your marriage lasted for the five years it did. Too idle and good natured to get out of it?’

Cedric stopped abruptly. ‘My dear Felix,’ he protested, ‘surely you are not accusing me of being good-natured are you?’

‘You? Good lord no. Banish the thought!’

Bearing a large golden bream and bunches of gardenias the two men and their dog ambled back to the Palazzo Reiss.

It would be strange not to have her brother continuously loitering in the background, mused Lucia. It wasn’t that she had disliked him exactly; merely that he had been such a source of annoyance. A liability too: one was never quite sure what jam he was going to get into next or who he was going to offend. She thought grimly of the blackmailing episode at his school when he had put the frighteners on that ridiculous little housemaster. There had been an awful hullaballoo and he had been expelled. It wasn’t the expulsion as such that had mattered but its repercussions. It was when she had been invited to stay in a rather grand house in Wiltshire and had her eye on the hostess’s son. When the lady learnt of her brother’s expulsion and its cause the invitation had been hastily withdrawn. The memory still rankled.

And then there had been the time when he had approached her then current beau for money: had brazenly tapped him on the shoulder when the two of them had been getting rather snug in the tool shed, and said: ‘My sister
doesn’t come cheap you know. How about a few fivers?’ The swain had fled never to be seen again … Yes he really had been such a little beast!

The more Lucia dwelt on Edward’s failings and his talent to annoy the more incensed she became, and the more quickly any incipient pain over his loss evaporated. The whole thing was still very shocking of course but it was also strangely liberating. In fact without the nagging fear of Edward fouling things up she could now proceed unencumbered to pursue Guy and the title. Not that there was much money there of course; but play her cards right and her grandfather might help – although that was by no means certain.
So
tight-fisted!

She frowned and then gave a little smile. Actually there was always the possibility of finding that Horace book, the one that Edward had been engaged to get hold of. After all, as she had explained to him, she knew exactly where that Murano vase was – or where it certainly had been the last time she was at Bill’s studio. Secure that and she was half way to fortune. And the other half? Well Carlo might still have his uses. He had been rather cagey the last time she had enquired of the book, when Edward was pursuing it; in fact he had been tiresomely vague. She would have another go and pin him down; he was bound to know something. She could also try Lupino
when
he elected to open his shop again.

Of course it would be just her luck for that British Museum woman to have already found the thing and whisked it off to London; though presumably if that were the case those two friends of hers would surely have said something in the café the other day. She pictured the two men. She hadn’t liked them from the start, when Guy had first introduced
them on the Accademia Bridge – not one tiny bit. And now she liked them even less, especially the flower seller:
such
a sardonic little face. And how appallingly rude he had been. Totally unwarranted! Why Guy felt he had to be so civil to them she had no idea. Things would certainly change once she had got him to propose and she had the title: he would be steered away from such obnoxious nonentities!

And thus like her deceased brother Lucia too allowed her imagination to ramble – not so much over Ferraris, tailored suits and private planes but rather to playing hostess to venerable members of the Scottish aristocracy. As her canny grandfather might have warned, ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men …’

‘I hope you weren’t disturbed by the hammering,’ said Mr Downing as Rosy was about to go up the stairs, ‘a dreadful racket and I do think we might have been warned; it was most distracting. It’s bad enough having to write letters at the best of times, let alone with that sort of noise going on!’

Rosy shook her head explaining she had been out all morning (fruitlessly searching unlikely bookshops and dodging spectral Oxford librarians) and only just come in. ‘What was it, something to do with the plumbing?’ she asked.

‘Oh no, nothing useful like that.
Decorative
I am told.’ Whatever it was, clearly Mr Downing was not impressed. ‘You’ll see them on the landing: very large and very modern. I don’t care for them at all.’ He pursed his lips in disapproval.

‘Ah, I see. So you are talking about pictures?’

‘Some might call them that. I just call them splurges of paint. I am rather surprised Miss Witherington was so accommodating. With luck they are only here temporarily.’

Rosy was interested and wondered whether her own view would accord with Mr Downing’s. ‘Where do they come from – are they done by a local artist?’

‘In so far as he lives in Venice, yes,’ Downing said tartly. ‘But certainly not local in the full sense of the word: he arrived from America five or six years ago. Some of his stuff used to be all right, quite pleasant really albeit a little derivative perhaps … He’s evidently trying something new; a poor move I should say. Apparently they are intended as a pair:
Venice in Daybreak, 1 & 2
. Personally I would call them “Venice in Two Scrambled Eggs”! He laughed, keenly impressed with his own witticism.

Rosy continued up the stairs and paused on the landing to inspect the two paintings. As she had guessed they bore the signature of William Hewson. She stood back to get a better view. Downing had likened them to scrambled eggs. Well she wouldn’t go as far as that, but the virulent yellow streaks heaped on tones of grey and blue did not strike her as particularly Venetian nor indeed evocative of daybreak. Still, doubtless the cognoscenti might dub them ‘challenging’. Unchallenged she went to her room.

On the way back to the
pensione
she had bought a local paper – out of principle rather than interest. Struggling with news items would in theory help her language skills. Though whether the exercise was truly helpful she wasn’t convinced; probably a book of nursery rhymes was more her level. Perhaps it would have been sensible to buy an Italian whodunnit from the dead Pacelli or even one of those risqué paperbacks she had seen piled on his table; what
wasn’t understood could doubtless have been surmised! However, with an hour to go before supper she dutifully persevered with the newspaper.

Thinking of Pacelli prompted her to scan the pages for any more news of his murder. By now there may have been further revelations – though she just hoped the police were no longer seeking help from the public. With luck they had found all they needed.

The name plus an accompanying smudgy picture turned up on the third page. Photography did little to enhance the bookseller’s saturnine features, and to Rosy’s eye he looked less like the victim than the assassin. From what she could make out nothing new had emerged although apparently it was now fully established that the killer had been of ‘huge physique’ and ‘frenzied mind’, the journalist going so far as to assert that he (or she) was of fiendish intent and comparable to the Phantom of the Rue Morgue. Well at least I can manage to grasp all that, Rosy thought, but my God what tosh!

Slinging the paper aside she went to the wardrobe and took out something suitable for supper: a dress with matching handbag. She snapped open the bag’s clasp and started to empty it of the usual detritus of pens, aspirin, hankies and lipsticks. But there was something else there – a small crumpled envelope. With a start she remembered that the bag was the one she had been carrying on the night of Edward’s drowning. The envelope had slipped from the youth’s trouser pocket when he had jumped up from the table and made his dramatic dash from the terrace. She recalled the thing lying on the ground among the coffee cups and smashed wine glasses, and herself stooping to retrieve it. She had stashed it in her handbag meaning to
give it to him later. But subsequent events had decreed otherwise.

The envelope was sealed and slightly to her surprise on the front bore the name of William Hewson. It was written in bold ink and underlined with a thick flourish.

Had there been no addressee Rosy would have opened it. But not only was there a name but it was someone’s she knew. It would be only right to give it to him, although it was presumably of little relevance now (and perhaps even slightly discomfiting). However, it had been clearly intended for Hewson and thus she must ensure that he got it. Easy: he had invited her to his studio the following afternoon and she could take it then.