Ghost Music (26 page)

“But why would anybody want to stitch anything to her skin like that? And what do you think it was?”

“Try not to think about it. Not tonight, anyhow. Just make love to me. I've missed you so much.”

“Was she one of Enrico and Salvina's daughters?”

Kate gently touched my face with her fingertips, even my eyelids so that I had to close my eyes.

“I didn't see her, my darling. Only you did.”

I laid my head back down on the pillow. “Okay . . . I promised not to ask questions. But just answer me this. Why are Enrico and Salvina so pleased that we're here?”

“They think that we can give them justice, that's why.”

“Justice?”

“Most people never get it. But justice is more important than anything—even revenge. When you've been given justice, you can sleep at night.”

“Well, sleep isn't exactly what I had in mind.”

I picked up the black silk scarf. I twisted it, and then I put it between her teeth, and knotted it tightly behind the back of her
head. I have to admit that I felt more than a little kinky. I had never been into any kind of bondage before—you know, handcuffs or anything like that—but it was unexpectedly arousing, seeing Kate with a gag in her mouth.

That night, she didn't scream. She couldn't. But she shuddered from head to toe, and uttered a low, muffled groan that I can still remember, even today.

* * *

At about 2:30
AM
, I was woken up by the sound of a woman sobbing.

I lay on my back for a while, trying to make out where it was coming from. Enrico and Salvina's bedroom was more than fifty feet away from ours, and the doors were so heavy that, once they were closed, you couldn't hear anything at all.

I sat up. The sobbing went on and on, growing even more wretched with every sob. I thought I could hear the woman calling out, too. I got out of bed and walked over to the window. When I drew back the net curtains, I could see the narrow canal at the back of the house, and the paved garden with the dried-up fountain in it.

There was no moon that night, but a single bare bulb shone over the top of the door, throwing a raw electric light across most of the garden. A woman was standing by the stone balustrade overlooking the canal, close to the steps. Her head was covered by a black loosely woven shawl, but I was pretty sure from her figure that it was Salvina. She had both hands clasped in front of her, and she was clutching a rosary.

I didn't know any Italian, but I could tell by the tone of her voice how distressed she was, and it sounded as if she was crying out to somebody.

I opened the windows and stepped out onto the balcony. The night was damp and foggy and bone-penetratingly cold, and I was
wearing only my T-shirt and my shorts. I stood by the cast-iron railing and I wondered if I ought to call out to her, and ask her what was wrong. After all, she was only about fifteen feet away from me. But before I could say anything, I saw movement, down in the shadows, and heard a hollow knocking sound. I leaned over the railing and saw that a launch was moored at the bottom of the steps, and that there were two men on it, both of them wearing dark coats and caps.

“Please! Please! No!” Salvina cried out, in English. “Not my Amalea! Please!”

“Salvina?” I said. “Salvina, what's wrong?”

She didn't seem to hear me. The two men on the launch didn't appear to hear me either, because neither of them looked up at me. Instead, one of them climbed up the steps and held out his hand.

“Are you coming? Do you want to see her maiden voyage? Maybe we can crack a bottle of champagne on her head, to send her on her way.”

“My husband, he will do anything you want! I promise you!”

“I'm sure he will, ma'am.” What the man said next was indistinct, because he turned his back to me, but then he said, “We need to protect ourselves, that's all. We need a surefire guarantee.”

He helped Salvina to negotiate the steps, and climb onto the launch. It dipped and swayed in the narrow canal, and there was a gurgling and slapping of water up against the wall.

“That's it, lady, you're doing just fine,” said the second man, and I was sure that I recognized his voice. They were both Americans, but the second man was definitely familiar.

“Oh, Amalea!” Salvina wept. “
Come hanno potuto fare questa cosa terribile a voi?
You men, you are not men at all! You are demons!”

“Well, we'll see about that,” said the second man. “It depends
on how ready the good
dottore
is, to give us what we're asking him for.”

With that, he started up the launch's engine, and the first man loosened the ropes with which it was fastened up against the steps. The launch slowly moved away, and as it did so, the light from the top of the door fell across it, and I saw for the first time why Salvina was so distressed.

Across the rear seat at the stern of the launch, there was a single-bed-size mattress. Lying on the mattress, faceup, naked, was the same young girl I had seen in the drawing room while I was playing the piano that evening. She was gagged, in the same way that Kate had been gagged, but she didn't appear to be tied up with any other cords or bindings. Yet she was twisting and struggling as if she were trying to free herself.

The launch burbled off toward the Grand Canal, with the girl still struggling on top of the mattress. It was only then that I remembered the suture holes that I had seen in her skin, in the drawing room, and realized why she couldn't get free. She must have been
sewn
to the mattress—her back and her arms and her legs—and she was unable to break away from it without tearing the stitches open.

I stood on the balcony, watching in horror as the launch was swallowed by the darkness between the buildings, and then veered left into the Grand Canal, and completely out of sight.

I stepped back into the bedroom and closed the balcony doors, and fastened them. I didn't know for sure if I had witnessed a real abduction, in real time, or if I had seen something that had happened before. Or maybe I had seen an event that hadn't even happened yet, and the reason that Kate had wanted me to come here was to prevent it, before it did.

I said, “Kate—
Kate
,” and shook her shoulder, but she was sleeping like she was dead. I switched on the my bedside lamp and it was then that I saw the packet of Dormomyl next to her
wristwatch. My mother always took Dormomyl because my father snored so much, so I knew that it was one of the strongest nonprescription sleeping tablets you can buy.

I went to the bathroom and took down the dark blue toweling robe that Salvina had left for me. Then I opened the bedroom door and went out into the corridor.

The apartment was silent, except for the measured ticking of the central heating system, with its big old-fashioned radiators. I walked along the corridor until I reached Enrico and Salvina's bedroom. From my experiences in Stockholm and London, I knew better than to knock, and disturb them. Instead, I took hold of the decorative door handle, and very quietly opened it.

Enrico and Salvina's bed was even grander than ours, with drapes hanging from the ceiling, and drawn back on either side of the bed with velvet cords and tassels. Enrico was facing me, but he was fast asleep, although his spectacles were shining on his nightstand as if they were watching me. I couldn't see Salvina, so I stepped cautiously toward the bed, only two or three paces, to make sure that she was there.

She was buried deep in the bedcovers, but yes, she was there, and not out on a launch on the Grand Canal. Her wiry dark hair was untied, and spread out over the pillow.

Enrico stirred in his sleep, and murmured something in Italian that I couldn't understand, like,
“. . . saffron darer . . . saffron darer . . .”
and then he shouted,
“Voi bastardi!”
which I
could
understand. But even though he shouted quite loud, he didn't wake himself up. He didn't wake Salvina either.

I closed their bedroom door behind me. It made the softest of clicks, and I held my breath for a moment and waited, in case Enrico had heard it. There can be a hundred-decibel electric storm right over my apartment, but I can carry on sleeping like a hibernating groundhog, but if somebody were to tread on a squeaky floorboard somewhere inside my bedroom, it would wake me up instantly.

Eventually I tiptoed my way along the corridor to the next bedroom door. At one time, this must have belonged to one of Enrico and Salvina's three kids. Again, I opened it very quietly and peered inside.

It was a boy's room, with a carved oak bedstead, and a matching toy chest at the foot of it. The lid of the toy chest was tilted open, and the floor was strewn with toys. A plastic ball, a tinplate tank, a scattering of metal soldiers. There was also a tinplate Bugatti racing car, and a Venetian doll: a scary-looking figure in a dark cape, with a birdlike mask for a face.

On the left-hand wall hung a large framed print that showed a winding procession of grotesque figures, all in medieval costumes, dancing across a city square. They were waving sticks and pigs' bladders and swords, and all of them wore expressionless masks. Kate had already told me enough about Venice for me to know that these were the characters from the
comedia dell' arte
, the traditional street theater of Venice, which told ribald stories about rich men and rogues, beautiful sluts and unscrupulous twisters.

I was just about to leave the room when I saw something move, on the opposite side of the bed. To begin with, I couldn't make out what it was. Then, out of the darkness, a figure materialized. It was about four feet tall, like a dwarf, but instead of a head it had a crudely shaped ball on top of it, made of sacking. I couldn't help thinking of the terrifying midget in
Don't Look Now
, with his shiny scarlet raincoat.

The figure swayed from side to side for almost a minute, without uttering a sound, but then it suddenly whimpered.

I circled around the toy chest, being careful not to tread on any of the toys. As I reached the other side of the bed, I saw that the figure was a young boy, in a thick gray sweater, dark blue knee-length shorts, and sandals. His head was covered by a rough sacking bag, tied around his neck with string.

I realized with some surprise and even elation that I wasn't
afraid. In fact, I was beginning to understand that none of these strange events would be happening if I weren't here to see them.

I hesitated for a moment and I sat down on the bed. The boy must have heard me, or sensed me, because he took a wary step back.

“What's your name, son?” I asked him. “Who did this to you?”

He whimpered again. He sounded like a beaten puppy.

“It wasn't your dad, was it?” I knew that parents in different countries had some pretty unusual ways to discipline their kids, so I didn't want to tread on anybody's toes here. But to my mind, tying a bag over a young boy's head amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

“Non li capisco,”
he said, in a thin, breathy voice. He sounded as if he had a head cold.

“You don't understand? I'll try to say it slower. Who did this to you? Who put this bag over your head? This
saccho
? Was it your dad? Your
padre
?”

The small boy shook his head, and then he said something very soft and hurried, which I couldn't possibly follow.

“Okay, listen,” I said, “let's get this
furshlugginer
bag off, and then you can maybe talk some sense.”

“Non tolga la mia mascherina!”
he screamed out, and his voice was high with hysteria.

“What?”

“Non tolga prego la mia mascherina!”

“You don't want me to take it off? Kid, believe me, you're going to spiflicate in there, unless I take it off.”

He tried to pull away, but I caught hold of his skinny right wrist, and held it tight. Meanwhile I used my right hand to loosen the twine around his neck.

“Please,”
he begged me.

“Listen to me,” I told him, “I'm just here to help you, that's all. No demands, no consequences.”

“Oh, please,”
he moaned, as I managed to untie the first of the knots. He began to shiver and his little legs sagged underneath him.
“Oh please no, please do not take it off, sir, please.”

I stopped, and said, “Why not? Is there something wrong with your face? You don't want me to see your face, is that it?” I had suddenly thought of the Elephant Man, hiding his lumpy features under a cotton mask, with a single eyehole cut into it.

I managed to unfasten the last of the knots, and all I had to do now was drag the twine out of the holes in the sacking. The boy gripped the bottom of the hood with both hands and held on to it tight.

“Please, sir,”
he whispered, but how could I possibly leave a kid of that age with a sack over his head?

He still wouldn't let go, so I took hold of the sides of the hood, where his ears were, and said,
“un—due—tre
—
!”
and yanked it upward.

The hood came off and to my horror the boy's head came with it. I tumbled back onto the bed, still clutching the hood, and jarred my shoulder against the headboard.

His body remained standing for a split second, headless, both of his hands still raised, his fingers still curled where he had tried to keep hold of the sacking. Then he pitched sideways, onto the rug, on top of a higgledy-piggledy jumble of plastic soldiers and farm animals, one arm swinging up as if he were waving to one of his friends.

With the boy's detached head inside it, the hood was as heavy as a bowling-bag. I lowered it onto the pillow. I didn't have the nerve to open it and take a look. There was no blood. I would have expected
fountains
of blood, if I had pulled somebody's head off, but there was nothing at all.