The Good Thief's Guide to Venice (18 page)

Graziella was striding across the middle of the span, her shoes thudding rhythmically against the wooden treads, her hands buried deep inside the pockets of her leather jacket. The view of the moonlit canal waters didn’t appear to interest her – she wasn’t even tempted to glance towards the ghostly dome of the church of Santa Maria della Salute – and her self-absorption was something I was thankful for.

The arched bridge would expose me. It offered no nooks or crannies to crouch behind, and the wooden planking would amplify the sound of my movements. Much as it pained me, I was forced to wait until Graziella’s red wig bobbed down the steps on the opposite side before tackling the stairs.

The night breeze whipped up from the tremulous waters of the canal and I turned my collar against the chill, tucking my chin down into my chest. It didn’t help that I wasn’t wearing any socks. The icy wind swirled around my bare ankles, whistling up my trouser legs.

I saw no sign of Graziella when I reached the far side. There was a chance that she’d taken one of the turnings to the left, following the curve of the Grand Canal and perhaps even passing the
bacàro
that Victoria and I had visited the previous night, but I put my faith in the channel that continued directly ahead.

Smart decision. I caught sight of her red wig approaching the middle of Campo Santo Stefano, the square a wash of darkness around her, aside from the sullen light of some period streetlamps. She moved at speed, not pausing to consider the pensive marble gentleman on the white plinth she was nearing. I hung back, grateful for the construction work at the opening to the square, where an area had been partitioned off with plastic netting.

I couldn’t afford to linger for long. Once she reached the far side, there’d be a considerable distance between us, enough for her to lose me in the warren of alleys and zigzagging lanes that lay ahead. I waited until I judged that she was beyond earshot, then moved quickly along the edge of the square, making use of the stacked café tables and chairs for camouflage. My plan was to be level with the statue by the time she exited, but she was faster than I’d anticipated, and I was forced to run.

I reached the corner of the cathedral with blood pulsing in my ears. The red of her hair flared in the dim up ahead, bobbing from side to side with her movements like a lantern swaying in a draught. The flare jolted upwards as she traversed a humped bridge.

I’d been along this route often enough to have a rough notion of where she was heading. Campo Manin was her most likely destination, and from there she could turn right for Piazza San Marco or left for the Rialto. She continued straight on, just as I’d anticipated, but I swung left, then right, jogging along a parallel alleyway in the hope of gaining ground. At one point, the alleys reached a cross-street, and I paused to be sure my way was clear before sprinting ahead and skidding to a halt before the graceful bridge at the outlet of the passageway.

Lurking there, covering my mouth with my hand to stop my breathing from giving me away, I watched her enter the square. Graziella was pacing towards a glass and concrete office block, but instead of veering towards one of the far corners of the
campo
, she surprised me by turning right just beyond the winged lion at the foot of the statue of Daniele Manin, disappearing along a hidden path I hadn’t noticed before.

The unknown
calle
had the appearance of the entrance to an army trench. Dingy and chill, it tapered into a clotted blackness without any hint as to where it might lead. Cursing myself for not bringing my penlight, I edged along with my arms crossed in front of my face, passing the barred windows of a gentleman’s outfitters and a neighbouring café. Letterboxes, doorbells and utility pipes emerged from the gloom, telling of residential properties hidden behind the walls that towered above me.

I couldn’t see her red wig, or hear her footsteps. There was a chance that she’d ducked inside one of the properties, but I felt sure I would have heard the noise of a door closing. There was also the possibility that she was lurking in wait for me, ready to pounce and knock me from my feet. It wouldn’t take much. The strange lane and the impenetrable darkness were so unnerving that a child shouting ‘boo’ would have done the trick.

Inching on, sliding one foot in front of the next, I found myself at a pair of imposing iron gates. The gates were locked and reached as high as the overhang of the building above, offering no way through.

I squinted hard, only just glimpsing the lane swinging away to my left, into a darkness that was blacker and more menacing than anything I’d had to deal with so far. I was sorely tempted to turn back and retrace my steps – it would have been easy enough to convince myself that I’d made a mistake and that Graziella hadn’t really come this way. Then I heard a clang of metal, muted but unmistakable, like the ding of a church bell swathed in cloth. I blundered onwards, nearly tripping on a fire hydrant and passing an old doorway covered in layers of fraying posters. To my right was the entrance to another passage, thinner even than the one I was on, the entrance marked by a stone archway above my head. I could just make out the lettering on a small yellow sign.
Scala Contarini del Bòvolo
.

I sneaked forwards, my hands pressed flat against the pulverised masonry on either side of me, my body tensed and ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Then, quite unexpectedly, the lane opened up into a hidden courtyard, where the moonlight took the edge off the darkness. To my right, a small lawned area was cordoned off by tall metal railings topped with pointed barbs. The lawn was filled with a collection of well-heads of varying sizes and designs, their white stone shining in the light from the moon with a spectral luminescence. Beyond the well-heads was the façade of an imposing palazzo.

The main building was around six storeys in height, made up of a series of stilted balconies, but it was dominated by a cylindrical tower, which appeared to contain a spiral staircase. The face of the tower was open to the elements, ringed by a concentric series of stone banisters and colonnaded arches, so that anyone who happened to be climbing the stairs could be seen quite easily. The only person climbing them was Graziella. Her red wig and bleached face were ascending the second spiral.

Apparently, the effect worked both ways, and she raised a gloved hand and beckoned to me, smiling ghoulishly. She seemed to find my gormless reaction quite amusing. So much for my skills as a tracker. So much for turning my situation around. I got the distinct impression that she’d led me here deliberately – that she’d been one move ahead of me yet again.

If I’d had the luxury of sulking about it, I dare say I’d have bolted for home. But I felt the need to see this through, to discover exactly how doomed I really was.

A gate was fitted into the barbed railings, but when I pushed on it I found that it was locked near my hip. If I’d had my tools with me, I could have opened it without any trouble, and it occurred to me that Graziella must have done just that and locked it again – the noise of the gate closing against the metal bracket would explain the clanging that I’d heard.

Removing my sports coat, I slung it over the metal prongs, then shimmied up the railings and did my best to climb over without causing myself a mischief. After dropping onto an uneven flagstone path, I reached up for my coat and heard it tear as I snatched it down. Damn. One of my sleeves had almost detached itself, exposing the lining. No matter. I fed my arms through what was left of the material and sprinted to the bottom of the stone steps.

The stairs were kite-shaped and evenly spaced, twisting me around on myself as I climbed. I passed from darkness to sketchy light and back again, moving from the inner recesses of the tower to the moonlit openings until I became so dizzy that I paused and leaned out over the stone balustrade to peer upwards. Graziella was leering down from above, the red hairs of her wig suspended from her face like exotic tendrils. She giggled and covered her mouth, the noise ballooning in the cramped square below us.

‘Where are you going?’ I called. ‘Where are you taking us?’

She giggled some more by way of response, coming dangerously close to a cackle, then snatched her head back inside. Moments later, the patter of her footsteps told me that she was climbing higher still.

I followed, the thin night air slicing into the back of my throat and making my nostrils sting as I inhaled. My thigh muscles burned, itching beneath the material of my trousers, and my bare feet rubbed sorely against the insides of my shoes.

After two more revolutions, I reached the spot where Graziella had been standing, but there was no sign of her. Bowing my head, I gripped my knees and sucked in a couple of painful breaths before bracing my hand against the curved inner wall and staggering on. By the time I reached the top, I was a gasping, sweating, trembling mess.

‘
Buono
, Charlie. You make it at last.’ She clapped her hands with the boundless energy of a gym instructor.

I let my coat fall from my shoulders with a groan and staggered into the middle of the circular floor. My T-shirt was plastered to my back and my scalp was prickling as if I might pass out. The top of the tower featured a series of arched openings. Graziella was crouching in the middle of one of them, balanced athletically on top of a stone ledge with her hands gripping onto the outside of the arch above her head, like an inwards-looking gargoyle.

‘Where are we?’ I asked, leaning my head right back to open my lungs and planting my hands on my hips.

‘A private place. It is a beautiful view, yes?’

She swayed one arm in an arc behind her and I squinted out through half-closed eyes. Despite the sting of sweat rolling down my brow, I couldn’t deny that the scene was breathtaking – something that at least gave me an excuse for wheezing so heavily. Laid out before me was a softly gloaming dreamscape of ramshackle terracotta roofs, concealed garden terraces, wonky television aerials, crooked bell towers and domed cathedrals. In the distance, the black waters of the lagoon were visible only from the dim twinkle of the navigation lamps attached to wooden posts that stretched into the distance.

‘And why are we here?’ I panted.

‘Because you follow me. Not so many people know of this tower. I think, maybe you would like to see it?’

‘You knew I was behind you?’

‘Of course. I expect it. You wish to know more about me. Where I live, perhaps?’ She smiled, full of compassion, and tipped her head onto her shoulder. ‘But I am sorry, Charlie, I cannot tell you this. At least, not until you kill Borelli,
capito
?’

Her eyes were smoky with fatigue. With some kind of warped affection, maybe. I tried not to fall into them. Tried very hard.

She reached up with one hand and slapped the brickwork above her, as if testing its integrity. ‘You know, Charlie, since I am a young girl, I am always climbing. First a tree. Then a wall. My parents, they see this, and they send me on adventures far into the Dolomites. To learn how to really climb. On rocks. Up mountains. With ropes.’ She grinned. ‘Also without them. This is when I learn to abseil. You have seen me do it, yes?’

‘What’s your point?’

‘My point? Only this. I can go anywhere, Charlie. Wherever I like. Up. Down.’ She nodded towards the view again. ‘Across all of this. But not you, Charlie. You cannot follow me from this place because I do not want for you to do it. And now, I think I will say goodbye.’ She raised her hand to her lips. Blew me the softest of kisses. ‘This is enough, yes? You are not a climber, I do not think.’

She straightened and reached for a handhold on the lip of the conical roof above. Bending her right leg at the knee, she kicked off the brickwork, grunting with the effort, and I watched her training shoes dangle over the dark abyss far below.

‘Wait!’

My shout was followed by a scraping, scratching noise, and then Graziella grunted as a roof tile dropped from above and her left arm swung loosely before me. Her foot searched desperately for support, and for a second I was convinced she would fall. Before I could react, she found her grip, then heaved and groaned until she vanished from view.

Her head appeared a few seconds later, hanging upside down from above the arched window, red hair dangling close to the stone ledge. Just watching her was making my palms sweat.

‘Yes? What is it?’ she asked, as if nothing the least bit unusual had just happened.

‘Police,’ I said, glumly. ‘I saw them in the palazzo. How do you expect me to kill Borelli with them there?’

‘They will be gone,’ she told me simply.

‘Gone? I don’t think so.’

‘He told them they must leave. They will do it.’

‘The Count did this?’

She nodded, and rolled her eyes in a show of impatience, a confusing gesture now that she was upside down.

‘And he’s definitely still there?’ I asked. ‘He hasn’t moved to a hotel, say?’

‘Do not worry.’ She winked. ‘He is still there. And now, I go, yes?’

And with that, her head vanished above the roofline, and I listened to the crunch and scrape of the tiles beneath her feet as she scurried away into the night, leaving me to ponder just why I hadn’t grabbed for her foot and ended the entire sorry mess when I’d had my chance.

Victoria was still asleep when I snuck back into my apartment. I left her to snooze for a short while longer, busying myself with stuffing my torn coat into the waste bin and packing my things. Fifteen minutes later, my suitcase and holdall were full to bursting, and I carried them through to the hallway before preparing to wake her.

Calling her name from her doorway didn’t work and, apparently, neither did entering her room and switching on her bedside lamp. It was little wonder that Graziella had been able to creep in and snip a lock of her hair. Her slumber was so deep that I was starting to ask myself if Martin had medicated her too.

Reaching out a tentative hand, I tapped the crown of her head. Nothing. Her eyes remained firmly closed, her face turned away from me, jaw hanging loose. I tapped again. Still no joy. She was wearing a skimpy vest top and her bare shoulder was exposed above the duvet covers. I placed my hand on her freckled skin, intending to shake her, but she surged up and around, surprising me with a feral yell just as something fizzed and sparked before my face.