Authors: Alex Connor
Isle of the Dead
ALEX CONNOR
New York ⢠London
© 2014 by Alex Connor
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e-ISBN 978-1-62365-370-5
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual personsâliving or deadâevents, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Alex Connor is also known as Alexandra Connor, and has written a number of historical sagas under this name. She is an artist and lives in the UK.
The illustrations within this book are copies of Titian's paintings, the portrait of Angelico Vespucci the author's own.
Contents
TITIAN (SELF PORTRAIT)
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PIETRO ARETINO (AFTER A PORTRAIT BY TITIAN)
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ANGELICO VESPUCCIÂ â THE SKIN HUNTER (IMAGE BY THE AUTHOR)
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Thirty feet under the first supporting column of Grosvenor Bridge a savage tangle of birds were fighting, shaken on the shifting surface of the Thames, their beaks dipping and jabbing at each other to get closer to the package which had just been dropped there. Over the previous few minutes they had tried to rip open the plastic covering, but when they finally gained access to the insides they flew off, disappointed. Slowly but determinedly the tide finished off the birds' work and tugged aside the wrapping to expose the corner of a painting.
Incongruous under a sulky London sky, the painted face looked up as though surprised to find itself shuffled between the bridge supports; the merchant's vestments lapped by water as the painting headed towards a small launch vehicle. Then, buffeted by another early November wind, it spun on the current and was shunted away. Ten minutes later the portrait washed up on the slimy bank of the Thames where it was spotted by a tourist walking along the Embankment.
It was the first time the portrait of Angelico Vespucci had been seen in public for over four hundred years. As the painting was lifted out of the river, the varnished surface shimmered in the light, the eerie gaze of the sitter unblinking and oddly defiant. No one knew the history of the portrait, or of the man it portrayed.
No one knew that its discovery would result in brutal murder and the identification of a killer who had been active centuries earlier.
Venice, 1555
I am afraid of water. Even though I was born with a caul on my head, which the old say is a protection from drowning. No one knows this, for people know little of me. That is my talent â to be invisible. Walking among people as unseen as the monsters under the Lagoon, the grasping weedy fingers lurking under bridges and the echo of drowned men, bleached and bloodless under the sea.
Winter has come quickly to Venice. Too soon, too cold, mists curling about the alleyways and the narrow bridges, figures looming up like ghouls as they go about their day. The atmosphere of the city has changed too. Long, fathomless nights and murky, unwholesome days lure in the city dwellers with the call of the bells from St Mark's. A darkness more profound than anyone can remember comes down on the city after dusk. Lamps struggle to make an impact, and they say more than fifty dogs have drowned, losing their bearings in the blackness.
