The Venice Job (9 page)

Max awoke with a pounding headache in a room full of white.

She tried to sit up in bed but a dull ache in her chest pulled her back down onto giant feather pillows. Her body tingled with discomfort. Her head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice, but when she reached up to cradle it in her hands, she felt a thick bandage circling her forehead.

‘Ah, you have woken up. I'm so glad you have decided to join us. Don't worry about your head, it's just a small cut.'

Max squinted at the woman who was sitting on the end of the bed. Her voice was like dark honey and her hair twirled around her face in rich brown curls. Her lips shimmered a deep blood red and she dripped with gold jewellery and a long white silk jacket over a movie-star dress.

Max didn't know what to say. She was lying in a king-size bed in a room that belonged in a palace or a castle. There were long arched windows, gold-framed mirrors and giant paintings of scenes from hundreds of years ago.

What was this place and how did she get here? She went to speak but felt a burning ache in her chest, and when she swallowed her throat felt scratched and bruised. Her hand gently rubbed her
throat, and it was only then she realised what was missing.

Her Spyforce medallion.

The woman smiled at Max's puzzled expression.

‘Your belongings are here. I had my staff wash and dry everything so they were ready for you when you woke up.'

Max eyed the medallion which sat on the pile of freshly laundered clothing. She hoped it had given nothing away and simply looked like an innocent necklace.

‘My backpack?' Max wheezed.

The woman looked concerned. ‘We found no backpack. It must have been washed away in the storm.'

Max's throat tightened. There was also her palm computer. ‘I had something in my pockets.'

‘I'm afraid there was nothing.'

‘Oh,' Max said softly. Without her computer, Linden and Toby wouldn't be able to find out where she was.

‘I can see you are worried.' The woman stroked Max's forehead. ‘Don't be. I had our family doctor check you over. She said you will be a little sore. You were thrown around quite ferociously by our storm and you took in a lot of water.' The woman
smiled. ‘Even though Venice's canals are beautiful, they are certainly not for drinking.'

Max frowned. ‘Canals?' She whispered, still not knowing what had happened or where she was.

‘My captain found you taking a little swim in the Grand Canal. It isn't normally the time of year for such sport.'

A swim? Who was this woman and what was she talking about? Bits of Max's memory floated back to her like the remains of a shipwreck. The storm, the rising water around her feet. She saw herself being swept along, trying to swim to safety, but after that, the world sank into a murky black.

‘Where am I?' Max didn't like being in a strange house separated from her friends.

‘
Mi dispiace
. I should have told you that first. I am Signora Allegra Antonelli. When my captain was moving our boat to safety during the storm, he found you in the Grand Canal. He rescued you and brought you back here to my home.'

The Grand Canal. Max remembered. Her meeting with the stranger at the Rialto Bridge: that was how she fell into the canal.

Signora Antonelli leant closer. ‘You are very lucky to be alive. You must have a guardian angel watching over you.'

The way she smiled made Max feel calmer.

‘I guess so.'

‘In this town there is a kind of restless magic. It sinks into people who visit so that even when they leave they take a piece of her with them. Some people have said that to be in Venice is to be in a dream.' Signora Antonelli's warm voice and hazel eyes were like sitting in front of a fire. ‘I understand your feeling a little lost. Venice has the power to charm you without you knowing she is even doing it.'

Signora Antonelli's face filled with a gentle and playful smile. ‘
Chi trova un amico, trova un tesoro
.'

Max frowned. ‘What does that mean?'

‘One who finds a friend, finds a treasure.'

Max was shaken out of her lulled state. ‘Friends. I need to call my friends.'

‘Of course. You will want to go home. Please use the phone here.' She pointed to the bedside table and stood up from the bed. ‘I will have my doctor see you again now that you are awake.'

Signora Antonelli smiled as she left the room. The long polished marble of the corridor rang out with the clicking of her jewelled high heels. She made her way to another room that was even grander than Max's and closed the door quietly behind her.

She picked up Max's palm computer that lay lifeless in her hands. ‘That little swim should make you think again about interfering where you aren't welcome, Maxine Remy.' Signora Antonelli paused. ‘I'll give you one more chance to go away, and if you don't, next time you won't have such a lucky rescue.'

‘You were rescued by who?'

After Luca had fussed over Max and helped her onto her bed, Linden activated the Shush Zone and Max told them what had happened.

‘Signora Allegra Antonelli,' she repeated as she pulled the blankets around her.

‘Signora Antonelli?' repeated Luca. ‘Are you sure it was Signora Antonelli?
The
Signora Antonelli?'

‘Are you going to stop repeating her name sometime soon?' Toby asked.

‘Signora Antonelli? I mean, yes. Sure. It's just that …'

‘Maybe you should leave until you've regained control of your brain.' Toby wasn't so interested in this Signora Antonelli woman. He was more
concerned about Max and that someone had deliberately tried to push her into the canal. ‘The guy in the hood ran off. We tried to find you but you went under so quickly.'

Linden had been silent until now. ‘Luca was right, we shouldn't have made you go.'

‘You didn't make me go,' Max reminded him. ‘And we couldn't ignore the note.'

‘I know, but …'

‘The doctor checked me over twice. I'm fine, Linden, really. Just a lot more determined to find out what's going on.'

‘Did you get a look at the guy's face?' Luca asked.

‘Only a glimpse, but there was something familiar about him …' Max frowned.

‘Who do you think it was?' Toby asked.

‘I'm not sure, but my guess is he has something to do with the threat to Venice and doesn't want us poking around. How long until we dive?'

‘
We
are diving in an hour,' Linden spelled out. ‘
You
are staying here.'

‘Oh, and I was so looking forward to it!' Max pretended to sulk.

‘You were lucky Signora Antonelli took such good care of you.'

‘What's the big deal about this woman?' Toby was starting to dislike the sound of her name.

‘She's one of the most respected women of Venice. I have met her only twice when she has been to the house, but my father really likes her. She is rich, smart and always throwing parties to raise money for charities.'

‘I know we need to be even more wary of people we don't know after what happened to Agent 31,' said Max, ‘but she really made me feel safe and that she was telling the truth.'

Linden took out his palm computer. ‘Just to be sure, I'll ask Steinberger to run a check on her.'

‘You won't find anything, she is very much admired in this city.' Luca's face took on a serious intensity. ‘She also runs the best ice-cream business in the world.'

‘Yeah, she told me about it,' Max said easily. ‘She's invited us to have a tour.'

Luca's head spun round so fast the room blurred around him. ‘She what?'

‘She told me if I wanted to come and look through her ice-cream factory I could.'

‘Nobody gets invited through her factory,' Luca said in stunned surprise. ‘She has created recipes for ice-cream that ice-cream makers around the world
have envied. Her chocolate is more chocolatey, her vanilla more vanillary, her pecan more pecany.'

‘Pecany?'

‘Yes. It's rumoured she has a secret colony of bees she feeds with flakes of gold to create her creamy honey gelato, and that her chocolate is made from cocoa beans that have been individually nurtured by the world's finest growers. When does she want us to go?'

‘I told her we were busy and wouldn't be able to.'

‘You're the son of the mayor,' Toby frowned. ‘Couldn't you visit the factory any time you want?'

‘She operates in strict secrecy. Even when an employee leaves, they have to sign a form saying they will never pass on the secrets of her ice-cream to anyone.'

‘Has anyone ever tried to steal her recipes?' Max was curious.

‘Only once. Signore Georgio Berlucci. He was a friend of my father's and a loyal employee of Signora Antonelli's for years until he had a disagreement with her. No-one ever knew what the argument was about, but he left the company and announced he would be releasing her recipes to the world. Soon after, he mysteriously disappeared and his house was burnt to the ground.'

‘He was killed?' Max asked.

Luca shrugged. ‘There was no evidence. His body appeared floating in a canal and the fire in the house was put down to a group of rats biting through some old electricity wires.'

‘And all this happened after his fight with Signora Antonelli,' Toby clarified.

‘Yes, but she was devastated. She paid for the funeral and hired the most expensive barges in Venice to carry the coffin, which she insisted be sailed down the Grand Canal as a final mark of respect. Only the most important and wealthy are given such an honour before their journey ends at the cemetery island of San Michele.'

‘You have an island that's a cemetery?' Linden grimaced.

‘It is known as the Isle of the Dead and some say it is haunted.'

‘Haunted?' Linden asked.

‘There have been a few incidents of people visiting the graves of family or friends and, after becoming lost, being found wandering the island, deranged and speaking gibberish.'

‘What happened to them?' Max was beginning to get spooked but had to know more.

‘No-one is sure as they never recovered their
senses. So they were taken to one of the four Islands of Sorrow in the Venetian Lagoon: the one that houses special hospitals to take care of them.'

‘I vote we don't visit there during our stay,' Linden suggested.

Luca smiled softly. ‘Believe me, I have no intention of taking you there.'

Linden's palm computer vibrated with a message. ‘It's from Steinberger. He's run a check on Signora Antonelli and she comes up clean.'

‘I knew she would,' Luca shrugged. ‘She is a good person.'

‘Except for her tendency to be around when people fall into canals.' Toby was troubled by what Luca had said. Not about the cemetery but about Georgio Berlucci's death, and he wondered what Signora Antonelli's real involvement was.

‘Toby, Steinberger said she's been cleared,' said Max, ‘and Luca's father knows her and he thinks she's fine. Plus she did save my life.'

‘I know, but I'm not sure it was a coincidence that her captain was the only one on the canals when the storm hit. Didn't he hear the warning sirens?'

‘Signora Antonelli loves this city, why would she want to harm it?' Luca was getting annoyed at Toby's accusations.

‘I don't know, you tell me,' Toby challenged. ‘I say we go on this tour. See if we can't find out a little more about our secretive ice-cream queen.'

Luca stared back defiantly. ‘You will find nothing.'

‘Then at least you'll be able to taste some ice-cream.' Toby smiled.

‘I think Toby's right,' Linden agreed. ‘It can't hurt to do a little more investigating. And if that ice-cream's as good as you say, it'd be a crime not to go.' He looked at his watch. ‘But now we'd better talk about the dive.'

The others moved closer and focused on Linden's palm computer while he talked through their plan.

Whether Signora Antonelli's check came up clean or not, something bugged Toby about what had happened to Max. Even though Luca and the whole of Venice seemed to think this Antonelli was great, he had a creeping suspicion that she wasn't as ice-creamy sweet as everyone thought she was.