The Venice Conspiracy (10 page)

CHAPTER 21

Isola Mario, Venice

The historic mansion on the private island owned by reclusive millionaire Mario Fabianelli is in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Formerly a respected seat of Venetian grandeur, it is now a hippy commune. Its manicured lawns are overgrown and neglected, and the only hint of affluence comes in the presence of the black-uniformed security guards who patrol the perimeters.

The guards are in good spirits as they end their shift inside an ugly grey Portakabin surrounded by a crop of cypresses at the rear of the mansion.

‘Another day over - another cheque in the bank.’ Antonio Materazzi slumps against a door-jamb and lights a cigarette. The four guys in the locker room, including their supervisor, think he’s an out-of-work bouncer from Livorno. None of them have a clue his real name is Pavarotti or that he’s an undercover cop. Luca, the supervisor who gave him the job, is a big friendly guy who’s taken a liking to him - maybe even sees a bit of his old self in the well-muscled kid. ‘Antonio, come eat with us,’ he shouts as he struggles to tie his laces beneath the heavy sagging stomach that’s he’s keen to fill. ‘Spumoni makes the best tortellini in Venice, come with us.’

Antonio blows out cigarette smoke and waves him gently away. ‘Another time. Thank you for asking me, but today I promised my new girlfriend—’

Marco, the unit’s weasel-faced number two, wags a long finger and leers. ‘Haah! We know exactly what you promised your girlfriend!’ He slaps a tattooed hand on his bicep and snaps his arm upwards. ‘Why should you be eating pasta with old dogs like us, when you can be at home eating young pussy, hey?’

‘Enough, Marco! You’re a fucking pig.’ Luca glares at him, a supervisor’s stare of death. He turns towards Pavarotti and adopts a more fatherly look. ‘Another time, ’Tonio. Remember, you’re working mornings - twelve on, twelve off for the rest of the week, okay?’

‘
Si. Va bene
. I’ll remember.’ Antonio gives his boss the thumbs-up and focuses his attention on his cigarette until they all head off for the waiting water taxi.

The commune is set in the middle of the island with four major landing stages for boats, the main one being close to the guard house. Water from the lagoon has been channelled in various tributaries around and through the island. Numerous bridges arch decorously over waterways that lead to footpaths and forests planted centuries ago.

The undercover cop watches the water taxi head across the lagoon, flicks the dog-end of his cigarette into a metal bin and begins to amble around the mansion’s northern perimeter walls. If he’s right, Fernando, the exterior night guard is now exactly at the opposite end of the island. He’s got a good half-hour to do his snooping before they’re likely to bump into each other.

Antonio’s already noted that the walls are covered with anti-vandal night cameras and anti-glare high-def day cameras. An introductory shift designed to teach him how to monitor the feeds and archive video from the hard drives was enough for him to spot several weak areas. Nothing wrong with the system, nothing at all. The German-made Mobotix IP high-res set-up is one of the best in the world. But the flaw Antonio has found is a human one. It hadn’t been fitted by Mobotix, it’d been installed by Mario’s own team and they hadn’t quite got all their angles right. Forty overlapping camera views cover four long walls and any nearby internal and external activity. But the video sweep on the south wall, the one opposite the guard’s complex, seems to his expert eye to have been poorly rigged. It lazily misses a whole section of the mansion’s grounds. Well, to be precise, it’s not so much the grounds it misses as the waterway access and the building that lies behind it - the area they’ve been told is strictly out of bounds - the boathouse.

Antonio sticks close to the wall. As close as the climbing ivy that’s bound its pink tendrils into the whitewashed mortar. The boathouse is top of his list of places to check out. If drugs are being run in and out of the island, then this place is going to be the centre of activity.

By the time he reaches the slipway he realises prowling around isn’t going to be as easy as he thought. He glances up at the walls. The night cameras are out of view.
Good
. If he can’t see them, they can’t see him.

But that’s not the problem. Running out from the wall - outwards and upwards - is a vast wire-mesh fence, topped and edged with razor wire.

He weighs it up. Even if he could climb it and swing his family jewels over those slice-happy jaws of sharpened steel, then he still has to drop at least twelve feet on the other side into the water. Dangerous. At least break-your-ankle dangerous. Maybe worse.

Going round doesn’t look an easier option. To do that, he’d have to walk maybe a mile to the edge of the island, then dive into the lagoon and swim underwater and unseen up the slipway. In a wetsuit and properly prepared he’d happily give it a go. But not fully dressed, not unprepared, and not right now with one of his security-guard colleagues about to arrive on his tail.

Antonio moves his attention to the large wooden doors of the boathouse.

They’re going to be locked as well.

Even if he manages to get to them, those big old wooden slabs are going to give him problems. They’re padlocked from the outside and possibly even bolted on the inside. Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.

He turns and starts the walk back in the gathering dusk. He can just make out Fernando in the distance, a distinctive bow-legged walk, his pace slow and casual. In another hour the last dregs of daylight will have drained away and he’ll be making the last of his rounds with a flashlight.

Way beyond the vicious razor wire and high above the weathered old doors a rusty weathervane gently spins, kicked into life by a gathering westerly wind. A closer look - perhaps through binoculars - would have revealed that the iron head of the cockerel was a twenty-four-hour camera with night-vision lens, routed not to the Mobotix control room but to a smaller and more private panel of monitors and recorders at the back of the boathouse. A panel now controlled by the man who killed Monica Vidic.

CAPITOLO XVII

666 BC
The Plains of Atmanta

Kavie and Pesna are in a foul mood as they leave Teucer’s bedside and board their waiting chariot. Larth notices their sullen demeanour as he climbs up front with the driver and whips four of Etruria’s finest stallions across the hardened turf.

The chariot is new but the magistrate hasn’t even passed comment on it. Larth personally designed and supervised its construction. Twin axles, four nine-spoke reinforced wheels and bronzed shielding to all sides. It is the finest in Etruria. Better than anything his father ever made. Better than anything his father’s father even dreamed of making.

He glances over his shoulder and sees them deep in one of their many confidential conversations. The kind that excludes him. Belittles him.

They take him for granted. Treat him merely as a purveyor of pain. Well, he’s worth more than that. More than they credit him for. More than either of them will ever be.

Fields of barley and wheat fly by on either side of the chariot as Larth languishes in his loathing and resentment.

Everything the naked eye can see now belongs to Pesna.

Beneath the soil lie the rich reserves of silver that Pesna is mining and turning into precious jewellery.

The chariot halts and the driver, grumbling, dismounts and walks ahead to unbuckle a field gate.

Larth strains to listen to the conversation of the men behind him.

Kavie sounds upbeat: ‘It is a blessing in disguise.’

Pesna is sceptical: ‘How so?’

‘Our invitation to the noblemen, magistrates and elders can now include an invitation to the blessing of our new temple. How could they refuse to come and be part of something sacred?’

Pesna doesn’t sound convinced. ‘A blessing by a blinded netsvis? How will that look?’

‘He may
not
be blind.’

‘But what if he is?’

There is a pause. Larth can almost hear the wheels of Kavie’s devious mind turning before finally - as always - he finds the right reply: ‘Then he is a
novelty
. We invent a legend that Teucer selflessly sacrificed his sight so he would not be distracted by earthly things and could better listen to the words of the gods. Having such a devoted netsvis will make you the envy of all Etruria.’

Pesna laughs. ‘Sometimes, my friend, I doubt whether even the gods themselves are as blessed with words as you are.’

Kavie the sycophant laughs as well. ‘You are too gracious.’

‘Have you not already sent the invitations?’

‘Drafted, yes. Sent, no. I can make amendments later this evening and despatch them by messengers on the morrow.’

‘Good. So when? When do we invite these powerful and influential men to our modest meeting and divine temple blessing?’

Kavie holds up both hands and stretches out his fingers. ‘Six days’ time.’

The conversation falls off as the chariot driver returns. He mumbles something, climbs back on his seat and shakes the stallions’ reins. Larth ignores him and sits up straight.

Six days. Excellent. Six is his favourite number.

CHAPTER 22

Present Day
Isola Mario, Venice

The killer of Monica Vidic continues to watch the monitors long after Antonio is out of view. He pans the surveillance cameras left and right, then tilts and zooms in and out.

There’s no further trace of the snooper.

It isn’t that unusual for one of the security team to wander off their perimeter and stray into the boathouse’s fifty-yard no-go zone. But this is different. The young guard hasn’t appeared out of idle curiosity. No, not at all. He has something else focused on his mind.

Intrusion
.

He’s clearly come with the notion of breaking in.

The killer replays the tapes and smiles. Yes, indeed. The foolish boy had certainly been thinking of climbing the fence -
he’d like to have seen him try
- and perhaps even contemplated swimming his way to the boathouse door.

Now why would a guard do that?

And more importantly, what should be done with a guard who would want to do that?

The killer had made plans for the night. Big plans. But now they’re going to have to be postponed.

On another bank of monitors - ones slaved to the security master system - he watches Antonio and Fernando say goodnight to each other, punch knuckles and go their different ways
.
How nice to see colleagues getting on. He switches to another covert video feed, provided by cameras hidden inside the ugly white wall domes that most people mistakenly believe are just lights. The night watchman returns to the changing hut and hunts in his locker for the stale panini and soggy torte his wife had packed for him half a day ago. The snooper dawdles down to the decked pontoon and un-ropes an old motor boat.

A very old boat, by the look of it. The killer can see its registration numbers on the side and quickly writes them down. Its name,
Spirito di Vita
- Spirit of Life - has been removed, but the letters have been there for so long they’ve left legible outlines on the craft.

On a laptop on a steel table beside the security system, he opens a file marked
Personnel
. A few clicks later he’s reading all about Antonio Materazzi -
no doubt a false name
- and where he’s supposed to live and his employment history.

The references and background checks look good. But he still has a bad feeling about the young guard. A very bad feeling.

Within the hour his suspicions are confirmed. The boat’s number and the name
Spirito di Vita
don’t tally. The registration tracks back to someone called Materazzi, but the
Spirito
has a very different history and entirely different numbers. It started life as a plaything for a businessman called Francesco di Esposito from Naples. It was then bought by a former hospital worker called Angelo Pavarotti and now apparently belongs to his son, Antonio. Antonio Materazzi is almost certainly Antonio Pavarotti. Most likely an undercover cop - a special unit of the Polizia or Carabinieri. Operatives often keep their real first names in case some local calls to them in the street; that way they can pass off the recognition without arousing suspicion.

Monica’s killer shuts down the laptop and returns to the safety of the commune. A smile comes to his face. How ironic that Antonio’s father, Angelo - a name meaning messenger of God - should be the one to provide him with the information on how to kill his son.

CAPITOLO XVIII

666 BC
Teucer and Tetia’s Hut, Atmanta

Sunrise over the Adriatic. A sky of strawberry and vanilla reflects in the rolling mirrored ocean. A soft breeze catches Tetia and blows back her long black hair.

The piece is fired and finished.

Tetia reflects on the work and the duplicity involved in completing it. Last night Teucer had been moved back to their hut to finish his recovery. She’d dutifully tended him until he’d fallen asleep. Then she’d returned to the clay, carefully baking it in a new kiln pit she’d dug in the earth, filled with dried manure, chopped wood, sea salt and dried leaves. As the blaze had grown stronger she’d covered it with logs and clay offcuts to trap the intense heat, timing everything so she would remove the ceramic at the first glimpse of dawn.

It was a relief to find it hadn’t cracked. Though, when she looked closely, she could see hundreds of fissures, like the snakes she’d etched, crawling conspiratorially across the surface. The clay had not been pure. Poisonous deposits and odd minerals had seeped into it. At one point she’d been convinced the poisons would break the clay during the firing. But they hadn’t. And, looking at it now, it is indeed everything Magistrate Pesna said it would be.

Magnificent.

The greatest of all her works.

And she is loath to give it away.

Tetia takes time to gently clean it. She stores it at the back of the hut and feels a strange sensation in her stomach.

A bubbling.

Like hunger. Only different.

She puts her hands across the bulge. Unless she’s mistaken, even her child seems pleased that she’s finished.

She covers the tablet with cloth and starts to chop fruit for breakfast. It makes her remember how usually when someone is ill neighbours bring small gifts as gestures of goodwill to speed a full and fast recovery. Fruits, cheeses, juices, or even talismans. But none have been brought for Teucer. No one has even visited.

Sharp shafts of sunlight begin to flood the hut and come to rest on Teucer’s face.

Eventually the warmth wakes him.

He drags himself upright and instantly reaches out for his wife. ‘Tetia!’ There’s a hint of panic in his voice.

‘I’m here.’ She goes to him and strokes his matted hair. ‘Are you feeling better? You have slept long and deeply. Had you not been making the grunts of a bear, then I may have taken you for dead.’

He smiles and puts his hands to his head, close to where she’s been touching him. ‘I do feel a little stronger.’ The bandages are all loose and the poultice has fallen off. ‘Though my eyes feel as though they are full of sand.’

Tetia can see that his dressing has slipped, his pupils are uncovered. He’s looking straight at her.

But he can’t see anything!

She steps closer. Looks for a flicker of recognition.

Nothing.

Teucer senses something. Perhaps it is her silence. Perhaps he somehow picks up her thoughts. ‘What are you doing?’

She swallows hard. ‘Nothing, my love. I had mislaid your things. Lie back down and I will change those dressings for you.’

Teucer lowers his elbows and lies back.

Tetia pours water into a bowl and uses ram’s wool to gently wipe away crusts from his eye lashes and sockets. She sits astride his thighs, and for a moment both of them think back to when they last made love like this. He smiles up at her and she feels him harden beneath her. He reaches out so his fingers touch the falling curtains of her hair. ‘Thank you, my sweetness. Thank you for being here with me and for not deserting me. I thought the other day that you had decided that if the gods had abandoned me, then so should you.’

‘Shush!’ She puts a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t say such things.’

Teucer falls silent, his fingers frozen like icicles in the soft waterfall of hair.

She bends her face low to kiss his dry lips. She moistens them with her tongue and feels a soft moan stirring within him.

Gently she removes her clothes and kisses his chest and penis. She’ll make love to him. Slowly. Caringly. Then she’ll tell him. Tell him she has to go to Pesna.