The Venetian Venture (17 page)

Having nothing better to do and feeling excruciatingly uncomfortable Felix started to wriggle about in his chair, and with a heave succeeded in jolting it over on to one side. His limbs were still tightly bound, but at least his legs were now down which gave some relief and he was able to lie in a foetal position on his side. He looked over at Hope-Landers sprawled a few feet away by the bed. The blood from his nosebleed had dried but he looked a bit seedy. Felix sighed and tried to ease the rope on his wrists. Nothing happened.

‘You do realise he is mad,’ said Hope-Landers faintly.

‘It had crossed my mind,’ Felix replied. ‘But if you don’t mind my saying it was pretty stupid of you to have messed about with that vase thing. I take it that the Horace he snatched was the genuine article?’

‘Oh yes it’s the right one all right. I took it from your cousin’s table some time back, the day after Carlo left it there, and replaced it with a counterfeit – the one Cedric found in her bookcase and gave to Rosy.’

‘Oh so it was
you
who switched the book,’ Felix exclaimed. ‘Whatever for? And what were you doing with the fake anyway?’

Hope-Landers gave a tired sigh. ‘I can answer your first question quite easily: I wanted the money. Having seen the Murano vase at Bob’s studio earlier on I realised that if I could obtain the pair and get to Farinelli in time I stood a good chance of winning the old fool’s favour. I hadn’t anything to lose and it was worth a try.’ He gave a rueful smile.

‘Really?’ Felix said sceptically. ‘Seems a lot of effort to me. Are you so short of funds? I mean you seem to live quite an agreeable life here in Venice – convivial company at Harry’s, supper invitations, a small pad in a palazzo and driving that boat around. Not too distasteful surely?’

‘On the face of it no. But such things pall, especially when you have no prospect of doing anything else … Being fêted by elderly ladies and grateful tour guides is pleasant enough but there is more to life I suspect. In fact sometimes I get so bored that I have even considered swapping
The Times
crossword for the
Manchester Guardian
’s.’

‘Good grief!’ Felix exclaimed.

‘And then of course there’s Lucia. At first I thought she was rather amusing and she’s certainly easy on the eye … I like people to look nice,’ he added simply. ‘But now she irritates me and has become a sort of albatross. One could do without her really.’

Felix knew exactly what he meant and nodded vigorously. However, his prurient curiosity was also roused: ‘Uhm, if it’s not an indelicate question’ – it was of course – ‘did you have a little fling with her?’

‘Did I sleep with her you mean? Briefly; but it rather
tailed off – or rather I did. I have a dicky heart you see, and one has to be a bit careful about such things … although to tell you the truth she wasn’t terribly engaging: too self-centred and a curious mixture of the frigid and the ferocious.’

‘Goodness, I don’t suppose that would do the old ticker much good; sounds terrifying!’ (Felix, who had a lurid imagination, shuddered.) ‘It just goes to show,’ he remarked helpfully, ‘every cloud has its silver lining or whatever it is they say.’

‘Pale copper I should say.’

‘Er, yes perhaps … Anyway, presumably you wanted the money so you could chuck it all up and get away.’

Hope-Landers’ face hardened. ‘Exactly. To get
away
. But there’s no point in getting away unless you escape to something utterly different and exciting, something extraordinary and exotic and fulfilling, and where you are not plagued with predatory sirens and irksome chores. I have spent too much of my life being obliging to vicars and old ladies and now I should like to
break out
– sail to foreign parts, hunt marauding tigers or ride on an elephant. Such things need funding.’

‘Ride on an elephant? That’s a bit rash isn’t! I should stick with the vicars.’ Felix was not entirely joking: he had an aversion to elephants ever since being unceremoniously pushed aside by one at the London Zoo; but it was not so much the slight that had rankled as the hiding he had received from his mother for breaking loose from his reins. The memory went deep.

However, dismissing the elephant he returned to the fake. ‘But what were you doing with it?’

Hope-Landers frowned. ‘Yes that is a bit of a saga but
since you ask, here goes. You know that other bookshop near the Arsenale, the one that is run by Pacelli’s cousin?’

‘The one currently closed?’

He nodded. ‘I had a flat in that area and used to know its owner Lupino moderately well – a bit slippery but in his way quite interesting and certainly more fun than Pacelli. Within certain discreet Venetian circles both were renowned for their forging skills, or at least the elder was. Lupino, the younger, was the novice – though apparently now quite the skilled maestro. I would often buy books from him and we used to share the odd bottle of wine and he would teach me Italian. One evening I asked him about the finer points of forging. He explained that he hadn’t yet reached the finer points but he would show me an item he had recently done, a sort of practice job. He pointed out the methods he had used but also its flaws. It was most interesting (the sort of thing that as an undergraduate I’d like to have had a go at; more fun than Virgil I suspect. A forger manqué that’s me!) Anyway I told him I was very impressed but he laughed and said it was rubbish – as apparently his mentor had made perfectly clear. He then said that as it was such a botched job he had no use for it and since I seemed so interested I was welcome to have it.’

‘And it was a mock-up of the Horace?’

‘Yes. And as I hadn’t read any of the verse since leaving Oxford and didn’t have a personal copy I thought I might as well refresh my memory with a crude piece of fakery; after all the poems were the same.’

‘But surely when you saw the original at my cousin’s, the one that Carlo had forgotten, why didn’t you just filch it and say nothing? Why bother to import your own?’

Hope-Landers grinned. ‘Your cousin may be a bit scatty
and short-sighted but even she would have realised that the thing was no longer where she had left it, particularly as she was expecting Carlo to come back.
Something
had to be there for her to pick up and hand to him. We had been doing the crossword together, and if she had noticed its absence the following day she could easily have assumed that I had taken it. Substituting the spare was at least a sort of delaying tactic, a holding operation you might say. And as it happens of course, I was in luck because Carlo completely forgot about the whole thing and the matter was literally shelved. Convenient!’ He laughed.

‘Hmm, but there was still a risk wasn’t there? I mean it was pure chance that Carlo didn’t return, and if he
had
then presumably at some point he would have realised the book wasn’t his and started asking questions.’

Hope-Landers sighed. ‘We all have to hope for the best and take a gamble now and again. Haven’t you ever done that?’

Felix most certainly had; and the recent escapades in St John’s Wood remained horribly vivid. But nothing was as horrid as this! ‘And I suppose too you thought that the rest of the procedure would be quick: snaffle the vase from Hewson, whip off to F. Berenstein, collect the prize and bugger off.’

The other nodded bleakly. ‘Something like that. Silly really.’

‘You can say that again,’ Felix replied indignantly, ‘look where it’s landed us!’

He glanced up at the clock. It was roughly the time that Rosy Gilchrist was due. With no answer from the buzzer she would have to use the key and let herself in as he had
told her to … But maybe she had arrived already! The entrance hall was too far off for them to hear anything. Supposing at this very minute she was being confronted by Hewson; supposing he had bashed her up as he had Hope-Landers – or worse still she was lying dead in a pool of blood. Felix closed his eyes: the bastard had done it before and in his present state he seemed capable of anything! He swallowed and tried to think of something better: Hewson fled, and Rosy seated in the salon sipping a dry martini while patiently awaiting her host’s arrival. Helplessly he clung to the hope.

As Felix feared, no such homely scene was being enacted. Rosy had indeed arrived and getting no reply from the buzzer had found the key under the gryphon and let herself in.

A man stood in the hallway: big, bearded and unsmiling. It was Bill Hewson with whom she had been chatting only hours earlier. Behind him was the open door to Hope-Landers’ apartment. The room was in chaos: desk upturned and books strewn everywhere. Rosy gazed uncomprehending.

‘Wrong time, Rosy,’ he said, ‘wrong time.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Too late for a social call. You should be at home tucked up in bed.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she replied indignantly.

‘And then,’ he continued, ‘you wouldn’t have interrupted things.’

‘Really? What things? What are you talking about?’ Her eyes returned to the room behind him. ‘You’ve been in there,’ she said accusingly. ‘My God you’ve ransacked
his rooms!’ She was suddenly fearful and felt her stomach lurch.
He would cut your throat given half a chance
she could hear the boy saying.

‘Hmm, yes. I was searching for something. That’s something you would understand I guess.’

She nodded. ‘You are after the Horace I imagine.’

‘Nope, not any more I’m not. I’ve found it.’ He gestured to the bag on the table, and taking out a book held it up. ‘See? The real McCoy this time, not that crude little fake Emilio took from your room.’ He gave a mocking grin.

Anger replaced fear. ‘You’re a fool,’ she said scornfully, ‘you can’t even be sure if this is the right Horace. It may be one of Pacelli’s masterpieces; they say he was brilliant.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said evenly, ‘I’ve looked. It’s the genuine article all right and I am going to have it.’ He made to replace the book in the bag and in so doing his sleeve brushed against candlestick on the console. It fell heavily and the book slipped from his grasp.

With hindsight Rosy wondered what on earth had possessed her; some kind of mad defiance presumably. But in an instant she had darted forward, grabbed the thing and made a wild rush to the main door. She yanked at the iron handle which creaked noisily but yielded nothing. She wrenched again but in vain. Oh God the thing had stuck! She turned, ducked under Hewson’s upraised arm and ran in the opposite direction. Fool! Only the stairs were ahead: she was in a dead end … Still, if she could reach the salon she might be able to lock or barricade its doors. Besides, Felix
must
be back soon. She reached the staircase and began the long ascent. Behind her she could hear Hewson’s pounding footsteps. ‘I’ll get you,’ he shouted.

She pushed on desperately. She was lighter, more agile
than her pursuer. Surely she could beat him to it! Up and up she floundered, heart racing, breath rasping. The stairs seemed endless but she willed herself to keep going, clutching the Horace in one hand and hauling herself on the banister with the other. She raised her eyes: only another flight. But behind her the thudding feet were relentless. At last she gained the landing, and scudding across the floor flung herself into the sanctuary of the salon.

Some sanctuary! She fumbled with the ornate bolt. It seemed far too flimsy to be useful – as indeed it proved. By now Hewson too was on the landing and she heard the heavy feet as he approached the door.

‘Rosy,’ he called, ‘open the door. You might as well. Do you think I am going to stand here twiddling my thumbs?’ Through the thin panelling she could hear his breath heaving.

She said nothing and backed away to the middle of the room, and waited.

He didn’t take long. There was a kick first. And then after a few seconds, not built to withstand a shoulder battery, the doors burst open and he was in the room with her.

She had expected sound and fury but in fact though breathing heavily he seemed strangely calm. He regarded her for a few moments and then said easily, ‘I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. I don’t suppose your job at the British Museum pays much; you could probably do with a few extra dollars in your purse. How about it?’

Rosy looked at him steadily. ‘I have no desire to make an arrangement with you and I have a perfectly adequate salary which covers most of my needs. Unlike you I don’t have a paranoiac craving to be as rich as Croesus. I suppose
it’s the paintings: they’re not particularly special and presumably don’t make the money you feel is your due. Edward Jones was perfectly right: your work
is
pretty run of the mill and you’re too old now to hit the headlines.’ She was mad to say it she knew; but it was anger that drove her and she couldn’t help it. (Perhaps, she fantasised, if she could get to the veranda she could chuck the book over the edge and then he would damn well have to run all the way down the stairs again!)

Calm vanished and his face contorted. ‘You little bitch!’ he cried. ‘Give me the book. Give me the fucking book!’ He lunged towards her and tried to grab it. She dodged and leapt back.

‘Don’t you dare come near,’ she breathed. He took a step towards her and thrusting his hand in his pocket produced a penknife and snapped open the blade. He placed it carefully on the table beside him.

He would cut your throat given half a chance
… again the words hammered in her mind and fear closed on her like a vice. And yet despite the fear and still goaded by some rebel instinct she heard herself saying, ‘This won’t work you know. Even now you are not
quite
sure if it’s the right one. You made a mess of the other all right – a ridiculous charade, sending over those ghastly paintings we were all supposed to admire and then getting your minion to search my bedroom. You are a bit of a blunderer aren’t you?’

Instantly she regretted her words. The retort had not been calculated, simply the product of wayward scorn. But she knew it was stupid. She saw the glint of hatred in his eye and his fists clench in fury. And yet when he spoke the words were level. ‘Oh there are no blunders this time,’ he
said quietly, ‘that’s the book all right. It’s got the initials BF on the back cover:
Bodger
effing
fecit
,’ he sneered. ‘That pathetic little wop Carlo explained it to me once. I shouldn’t have known otherwise; but I do now and I’m going to put it with that cheap bit of glass the old fool in Padua wants.’ He gestured to the bag he had been holding … And then lowering his voice he mumbled something she couldn’t catch while his eyes took on a glassy stare.

‘What did you say?’

He hesitated, and then clear-eyed again scanned her face: ‘I
said
, Miss Gilchrist, that if anyone blundered it was the pig Pacelli.’

Rosy gazed back sick to the core …
I’ve got your number
Edward Jones had said. So that’s what the blackmail had been about! She should have guessed. She moistened her lips and said huskily, ‘What made you do it? I agree he certainly lacked charm but why bash him up like that?’

‘Because, young lady, he had crossed me – rather as you are doing now.’ Hewson idly picked up the knife.

Rosy swallowed.
Oh my God, Felix
, she implored,
where on earth are you? For Christ sake come quickly!
Outwardly she said, ‘But wasn’t that a bit rash? I mean, did you intend to kill him or was it just a mistake?’ She tried to sound genuinely interested, concerned even. (As if she cared!)

To her relief he began to answer her question and she saw his hold on the knife relax slightly. He nodded. ‘Yes, it was a mistake all right. One hell of a mistake but he deserved it the two-timing rat!’

For an hysterical instant Rosy thought she was going to giggle. ‘Two-timing rat’. Had she ever heard that term used outside American westerns and English gangster films? She
thought not, and certainly not spat out with such venom. Interesting that people really spoke like that. A picture of James Cagney slipped into her mind and she could hear herself repeating the phrase with cronies round the supper table … With cronies? Supper table? Dear God, she would be lucky if she saw any of those again! In a trice she was sobered and once more plunged in icy fear.

‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘we had a deal. As you’ve heard, he was a first-class forger and while I had the Murano vase I knew I’d never find the Horace and certainly not in the time left. So I offered him a good price to produce a comparable book. I reckoned Berenstein was too blind and gaga to look too closely. It was a chance worth taking. But when I went to collect the thing he held out on me; said there were others interested who were willing to offer a better price. I tried to bargain but he was adamant. Well, I had already paid a percentage and I wasn’t going to be messed about like that. So I told him straight that we had a deal and that if he knew what was good for him he would damn well stick to it.’

Hewson paused and Rosy could see sweat glistening on his neck. He seemed horribly big and horribly near. His eyes swept the room as if he was recalling the scene in the shop. Then returning his gaze to her went on: ‘He had the nerve to laugh and said that he knew exactly what was good for him: a large increase on what had been agreed. We started to argue. The fool seemed to think it was funny and kept smirking, so I swiped him across the face and he tried to knee me in the groin. We struggled a bit and that’s when I picked up the paperweight and smashed it down on his head. His legs buckled and I smashed again … and again.’ Hewson shrugged his shoulders and added simply, ‘And then I left.’

‘And Edward?’ Rosy whispered. ‘What about him?’

Hewson frowned, seeming to reflect; and when he spoke it was in the tone of a reproving schoolmaster. ‘That young man was too big for his boots, always had been … How shall I put it? He had no sense of boundaries, no propriety. But when he started to blackmail me over Pacelli he went too far. I knew I would have to deal with him but wasn’t clear how. But in the end, as I see you have guessed, the young cub laid his own trap. It couldn’t have been easier.’

He moved closer and something inside her started to crumple.
Please Felix come!
‘You see Rosy my dear,’ he said softly, ‘charming though you are, I don’t like being crossed; people have to pay the penalty … especially when,’ and suddenly his voice changed, became rasping and thunderous, ‘when they
mock
my
art
you brazen little bitch!’ The knife flashed in the air and Rosy shrieked. But then he let it go and the next moment, like an ogre in a dream, he was bearing down upon her, his huge white hands outstretched ready to grasp, to wrench, to throttle … She gave a moan and it was as if the room exploded.

Bill Hewson fell at her feet. He lay writhing and another shot was fired.

‘That’s done for him,’ said Guy Hope-Landers.