Lovers and Liars (38 page)

e turned back and scowled at the window. The noise of the e’s engines altered pitch. A meal, and drinks, were served. t long afterwards, the seat-belt sign flashed on. They were nning their descent. Gini craned her neck, and peered out the window. She had never been to Venice, and in her imnation, the city was a miraculous place. She had seen glimpses

so many times, as everyone had; glimpses in paintings, in ographs, in novels. She wanted to catch sight now of islands, lagoon, but she could see nothing.

scal was staring into the clouds that enveloped the plane as descended through thick mist. His face was preoccupied tense. It had puzzled her before, his lack of excitement as key meeting came close. Now, suddenly she understood

She said in a quiet voice, ‘You don’t believe we are going to d him, do you, Pascal? You think McMullen’s dead.’

He gave a wry look, then a shrug. ‘It seems to me a possi.. A twenty-day silenceT

‘Death in Venice?’

at’s a novel way of putting it.’ He gave a brief smile. ‘But afraid so. Yes.’

was raining in Venice. It rained upon the airport; it rained n the transfer launch; it rained upon them as they negotiated maze of narrow waterways that led to their hotel. Inside,

rooms were adjacent. Pascal followed her into her room. watched her cross straight to the window, and throw the tters back. She gave a low cry of delight.

ook, Pascal, look. Oh, what an astonishing place. I’m glad raining. Look at the light.’

He moved to her side. Their view of the Grand Canal outside was que. Water vapour made the air luminous. Across the water, ugh rain, a palazzo could be glimpsed. Rain gave its stone a ry sheen. Below it, laid out across the water, was its twin, its

.on. Haze and perspective tricked the eye: the reflection of palace was as real, as substantial and as insubstantial, as the ace itself. As they watched, a vaporetto passed. The reflections ed and dissipated. As the water stilled and grew calm again, e phantom palaces reformed upon its surface.

The sky was without colour: the light had that shifting and endless subtlety of tone in which silver merged to pearl, pearl to grey, and grey to black. As Pascal watched this luminescence his instinct was to reach for his camera. Then he stopped, looked again, thought again. A camera was the wrong instrument for this. He laid his hand quietly across Gini’s shoulders, and she swung round to look at him, delight in her face.

‘I cannot trust my own eyes/ she said. ‘Look. The rain deceives them and the reflections and the light .

‘I trust your eyes,’ Pascal said.

Some while later, he closed the window, and they left their hotel. Within twenty minutes, they were lost. It would take them over an hour to locate the Palazzo Ossorio, even though it was close by, and Pascal, ever practical, had come armed with a map.

‘This city is like a labyrinth,’ Pascal said, coming to a halt. ‘It’s a very beautiful labyrinth.’

‘Even so.’ Pascal frowned at the map. ‘It seems so clear. We walk along here, into a square, then first left on the far side.’ ‘We’ve done that twice. We’re walking in circles.’

They retraced their steps. This time, believing they followed the same route, they found themselves in a different place, a narrow and dark passagieta. The canal beside them moved with the tide; the air smelled salty. A gondola and a boat rocked beside the quay. They turned into a passageway, through a low archway, and found themselves facing a solid wall. They were about to turn back, when Gini froze.

‘Listen, Pascal.’ She caught at his sleeve. ‘Footsteps. Someone is following us. I thought so once or twice before.’

Pascal placed a finger against her lips. They stood there in silence. The footsteps approached the entrance to the passagieta, then stopped, then retreated. Pascal ran back out to the quay but there was no-one in sight. He stood, frowning, looking this way and that.

‘Did you see anyoneT Gini said, as she rejoined him.

‘No. No-one. But look at this place, Gini.’ He gestured around them. ‘So many little turnings and doorways and passageways … ‘ He shrugged. ‘It was probably nothing. We’ll be more careful from now on.’

They were, but the Palazzo Ossorio still proved elusive, and eventually Pascal’s patience ran out.

,There should damn well be a bridge here.’ He came to a halt. k,!

ere the he is it?’

e’ve taken another wrong turn, I think.’

s is ridiculous. I never get lost. Let’s look at this map

peered over his shoulder at the map. She traced a web of ute intersections and crossings. ‘We’re here. I think.’

possible. We can’t be. We’re there. We’re going in totally the g direction. What we have to do is get to this intersection

- you see, where four streets meet? Then we go around the er, into the square, and we’re practically there. It isn’t that I

ey followed his directions. When they came to the key interon, they found six narrow streets met there, not four. Werde.’ Pascal began to swear in French, and continued to r, at length.

ini said, ‘It seems simple to me. We just take this street, then keep aiming to the right. It’s very close.’

‘It’s very close and we’re not going to get there by guesswork. instinct. Gini - wait … ‘

darted off along the passageway she had indicated. al followed her. She disappeared very suddenly from sight. al began to run. He found himself in a square with a small

Gini was waiting for him. Rain had drenched her hair, rain lpn down her face. Taking his hand, she pointed, and around corner, down a tiny and almost invisible passageway, they

trid a canal, a quay, and the Palazzo Ossorio at last. They pood and looked at it in silence, this elusive building. It was a palace no longer, and its splendours were ruined. Now it was lemi-derelict; timbers propped up its crumbling portico. It looked vth uninhabited and unsafe.

‘He can’t be here. Surely he can’t be hereT Gini stared up at the miiding. A rat scuttled from the building’s courtyard and into the pnal.

p ‘Shall we go in and find out?’ Pascal said.

KcMullen’s apartment was on the top floor; the rest of the buildbig appeared abandoned. Outside McMullen’s door, which had peither knocker nor bell, was an empty saucer. A thin ginger lat watched them, crouched on a window-ledge. There was a ly-blown note, tacked to the door, instructing them in English that if the occupant should be out, to come back.

Dead leaves rustled in the comers of the stairs. From the distance, perhaps from an adjacent building, came the sound of a door slamming. A woman shouted; a child screamed. Then there was silence. The cat watched them with narrowed green eyes. Pascal approached the door, and hammered hard on its panels. There was no response. Pascal paused, then hammered again. His blows echoed down the stairwell. The cat leapt to the ground and slunk past them. Tail vertical, its tip twitching, the cat descended the stairs, rounded a bend, and disappeared.

Gini said, ‘This is a horrible place. It smells foul. Damp. Murky. Decaying. Pascal, let’s go. He’s obviously not here.’

Pascal was examining the door, which, though old, was heavy. He examined its one lock. He crossed to the window where the cat had been perched, opened it with difficulty, and leaned out. There was a sheer fifty-foot drop to the canal below. No ledges. No pipes.

Gini said, ‘Pascal, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. One breakin is one too many. Let’s come back later. We can ask at that caf6 in the square.’

Pascal pounded one last time on the door. He tested its strength against his weight. The door did not shift an inch. He stepped back with an air of resignation.

‘Very well. You’re probably right. We’ll make some enquiries. And then we’ll come back.’

The owner of the caf6, a taciturn man, eyed them and shrugged. Englishman? What Englishman? He knew of no such person - this wasn’t a tourist area. The Palazzo Ossorio? Impossible. The place was empty. There had been some mad old grandmother holed up there, but even she had not been seen in weeks. Maybe she’d died, maybe she’d moved on. Who in their right mind would want to live in a place like that?

Its owner? He had no idea. Well, yes, since they mentioned it, they could try rental agencies, but not in this neighbourhood. They might find some on the other side of the Grand Canal, there were places there that rented accommodations to foreigners, sure - but in the winter most of them closed. There was one they might try, in the Calle Larga XXII Marzo, off the west side of St Mark’s Square.

The caf6 owner stood watching them depart. He coughed as they rounded the corner, and from the cafLs’s rear room a tall man, dressed in a dark overcoat, emerged. ‘Grazie mille/ he said. He handed back his empty cup of espresso, looked out at the

. and made a few disparaging remarks about the weather Italian. The cafC-owner noted that his accent was good, his

sing idiomatic - though he was certainly not a Venetian, not M around here. The man peeled off a few notes, and tossed m down. They came to considerably more thousand lire than price of an espresso. Without further comment, or backward nce, the foreigner walked out into the rain.

n the far side of the canal, Pascal and Gini found four rental ncies, including the one in the Calle Larga, but all four were d and shuttered. They enquired in numerous hotels: none

d any single Englishmen registered, let alone one who fitted ullen’s description. Few caf6s or restaurants were open out season; of those that were, they tried the obvious ones first, n the less obvious ones, tucked away in backstreets. No-one gni7ed McMullen’s photograph.

‘Nothing,’ Pascal said. They had returned to St Mark’s Square, were standing outside the glitter and glimmer of the cathedral’s de. ‘This is a hopeless task. There are thousands of caf6s, thoucls of h otels … ‘He stared angrily across the square. The fight s failing. Water made the paving-stones of the piazza shine. hts spilled out from the caf6s in the arcades on either side.

ini glanced over her shoulder. From the cathedral porch behind the sound of voices. A few out-of-season tourists made way in and out. English voices; American voices; other ages she could neither identify nor understand. Shapes of

pie, shadows. She turned back to Pascal, and so did not tice that one of those shadows was close behind them by the S.

She felt a sudden despondency. Ali this way, for nothing. She ook herself, then chafed her hands together. Pascal saw the ression on her face.

‘Don’t despair.’ He put his arms around her. ‘You’re cold, and u’re tired. But we mustn’t give in. We’ll go to a caf6, get mething toIeat. Drink some hot coffee. Then we’ll go back to t apartment.’

‘What if there’s still no replyT

Pascal hesitated. He said gently, ‘Gini, you know the answer to t. Somehow or other - legally or illegally - we get in.’

tfive thev returned to Palazzo Ossorio. It was dark, and the rrounding streets were ill-lit. The whole area seemed deserted: ere were no passers-by on the streets, no sounds of voices, or

radios or televisions. Above the dark water of the canal rose a thin greenish mist.

Pascal led her across to the silent building. He took her hand, and they felt their way across the courtyard. At the foot of the stone staircase he produced a flashlight. By its narrow beam, still hand in hand, they began to mount the stone steps.

Halfway up, Gini froze. She said, ‘What’s thatT

They stood listening. Pascal switched off the flashlight. The darkness was thick; she could see nothing, not even the outlines of the steps. She felt her skin chill, and the hair prickle at the back of her neck.

From somewhere, perhaps below, perhaps above them, came the sound of a low crooning. The sound rose in pitch, then diminished to a whisper, then stopped. She felt Pascal’s body tense.

After a pause, the noise began again, a low liquid murmuring sound, like an incantation. Gini felt something brush her legs. She stifled a cry, and Pascal drew her close. He pressed his hand across her lips, and said, in a low voice, ‘Someone lives here. This building isn’t deserted at all.’

He listened, the crooning began, again stopped. Somewhere below them there was a shuffling sound. A door opened and closed. Against one of the stairway walls, momentarily, they saw a band of light. It disappeared as the door closed and the murmuring recommenced. ‘Cats,’ Pascal said suddenly in a low voice. ‘It’s all right, Gini. Someone lives here and lives here alone. Listen, it’s a woman - an old woman - and she’s talking to her cats … ‘

Gini listened: she knew at once he was right. She was trembling, and ashamed of trembling. Pascal’s grip on her hand tightened; he switched on the flashlight, and moved towards the steps.

McMullen’s apartment was two flights further up. From the landing outside his door, the crooning was inaudible. Gini leaned against the wall. Outside, the wind buffeted the building; the window creaked.

She heard Pascal give a low exclamation, and swung around. ‘Gini,’ he whispered. ‘Gini, look at this.’

The door had been unlocked since their earlier visit. it stood open an inch.

Beyond the door was darkness, and silence. Pascal seemed to hesitate. Gini approached. By the open door, the smell of damp decay was sickeningly strong. She recoiled from the stench. Pascal’s face hardened. He put his arm across the doorway.

,,“You wait here. Wait here on the landing. I’m going in.’ You’re not leaving me here. I’m coming too-

,VI’No! You stay right here.’

6-In the torchlight, she saw the pallor of his face, and the anxiety ;,.Ns eyes. The smell made her want to vomit. She covered her iihuth with her hand, walked away a few paces, and drew in a JWp breath.

iWfGini, please. I don’t want you to come in here.’

0’rn afraid. I’m afraid, Pascal.’ She grasped his arm. ‘I’m too Oraid to stay here on my own. Someone might be in there . ?’,’,Oh, someone’s certainly in there/ he replied, his face grim. “Z”d they’re unlikely to harm us, I think .

k’ Mease, Pascal . . Tery well.’

‘k,,He switched off the beam of the flashlight. Leaning against door with his arm, and keeping to the side, he eased it ock. There was a shuffling sound at their feet; a few pieces K,, paper, faded bits of card, lifted against the passage of the PDor, then fell back. Pascal shone the flashlight on them, then *ain switched it off. He stepped forward into the dark, feeling wad of him as he went. Gini, following close behind him, also ambled in the darkness. On either side of her, she felt a wall: