The Lizard's Bite Part 7

Teresa nudged his elbow. Hard.

Falcone looked delighted.

"See," he said to Costa and Peroni. "Just a few small facts and already we discover something we didn't know. What would we do without these two?"

Teresa Lupo screwed up her pale, round face. "Please don't praise me, Leo. It feels so wrong wrong. This Uriel guy must have died for some reason. How badly was he burned? What tests have forensic run on his clothing?"

He shrugged. "I'm a detective. I can't give you a meaningful answer. He was terribly burned from the waist up. The rest of his clothing seems pretty much intact. Everything was covered by foam from the fire officers, which hampers forensic, or so they told me. But we're not talking your calibre of people here. Or . . ."

This next point had only just occurred to him.

"Or people who would be quite as diligent as you, I suspect. You should look for yourself."

"There you go again," Teresa complained. "If I'm to help, you need to cut out the praise."

"If you wish. So what else do we know?"

Falcone's comments about the key had been bugging Costa all day. The inspector had made him feel like an idiot when he drew the obvious conclusions. Now Costa could see why.

"That perhaps the key doesn't signify what it appears," Costa observed.

Peroni nodded. "Meaning?"

"The door could have been locked from the outside outside. Uriel could could have been locked in there by someone else and simply placed his own key in the door from the have been locked in there by someone else and simply placed his own key in the door from the inside inside. Except . . ."

Falcone picked up the plastic bag and shook it. "Except . . . why didn't he just unlock it himself and walk free?"

"I seem to recall," Teresa said, "a little lecture from a Roman police inspector. One that said, look for the simple solution. Usually it's the right one."

Falcone sipped his wine, closed his eyes briefly, appreciating it. "In Rome usually it is. But this is Venice. And we mustn't forget that. Here's one more thing: the dead woman had a mobile phone."

"Is that such a surprise, Leo?" Peroni asked. "Most people do."

"Not the Arcangeli. I checked with Raffaella. As far as she was aware, none of them owned one. Yet it was there. In the corner of the foundry. I found it when you two were supposed to be looking around today. It was underneath a portable table they used for moving gla.s.s. A table that could have just as easily been used for dumping a body into the furnace. Clearly our Venetian colleagues don't believe in such a thing as a thorough search. I checked with the phone company. The phone was registered under the name of Bella Bracci Bracci. The dead woman's maiden name. Her old family address too. There've been no outgoing calls on it for weeks, which is useful of course because that doubtless means it was used mainly for incoming calls, where we can't trace the number if it's been blocked. But ninety minutes before we had the first report of the fire, someone did phone out on it. To the direct line in the Arcangeli's office at the back of the foundry. The very place where, as far as we understand it, Uriel would have been before he went to work."

Teresa was scribbling some notes on a napkin.

"I can see where you're going with this," she said. "But as you said yourself, you've still got one big problem. Uriel had a key. He could have walked out at any point, if he'd wanted to. The fact he didn't means as sure as h.e.l.l he wasn't entirely innocent here."

Falcone pushed the plastic bag over to her and indicated the long shaft of the mortise key. "What do you think?"

Teresa threw up her hands in despair. "It's a key! I'm a pathologist. Not forensic. I don't do keys! I don't do keys!"

"Take it out if you like," Falcone suggested.

"Oh Jesus." Peroni sighed. "Listen to the sound of distant s.h.i.+t meeting a distant fan."

But Teresa Lupo already had the key in her hand and was turning it round in her large, powerful fingers, staring at the thing close up, frowning.

"It's been altered," she declared, placing the bunch back on the table, leaving the big one uppermost, pointing to the inside edge. It gleamed, just faintly, through the grime and smoke of the blaze. "As I said, I'm not a key person, but it looks to me as if someone's filed off a tooth or something." She looked at Falcone. "Does it still work?"

"That depends how you define 'work,'" he answered. "I tried it in the lock. It goes in. It turns. And turns. And turns. It's useless. It doesn't lock. It doesn't unlock, either. Which is how it's meant to be."

"And Bella's keys are missing," Costa noted.

The five of them absorbed this information. The young waitress came over and asked about dessert. Falcone cheerily ordered tiramisu and was amazed by their silence.

"Make that five," he said to the girl. "They'll get their appet.i.tes back."

They still hadn't said a word by the time the girl was back in the kitchen, laughing and joking with the women there.

"Excellent food here," Falcone said. "I wish you'd told me about it earlier."

Peroni cast him an angry glance. "And I wish I'd never mentioned it in the first place. Why can't you leave these things in the Questura, Leo?"

Falcone seemed surprised by the question. "Because the Questura, Gianni, is probably the last place we should be discussing these things, don't you think? They're working on behalf of Hugo Ma.s.siter, and no one else. A man who clearly inspires terror in the likes of Randazzo, and will doubtless do so even more once the island is his. The Questura wants us to sign off on two deaths as something we know, for a fact, they cannot be. All to crown this Englishman the saviour of Murano, and save a few city officials some awkward questions about the healthy state of their bank accounts."

"We're just supposed to deliver what they want," Peroni pointed out. "If we jerk them around, they could make life pretty difficult for us. Randazzo's an a.s.shole. That Ma.s.siter individual looks as if he could pull strings all the way up to the Quirinale Palace."

"That's the most apposite comment you've made all evening." Falcone smiled that infuriating smile again, in Costa's direction this time. "You were right, Nic. Ma.s.siter's name should have rung a bell. He owns an important auction house. Offices in New York and London. There was was a scandal too. Five years ago he would have been arrested on the spot, if we could have found him." a scandal too. Five years ago he would have been arrested on the spot, if we could have found him."

"But now," Costa asked, "we think he's in the clear?"

"Absolutely in the clear," Falcone insisted. "Otherwise he'd never be fool enough to come back here, would he? It's an interesting tale, though. Here . . ." He reached down into the briefcase he'd brought and took out two folders. "I photocopied what little there is. Not much, I'm afraid. I suspect Mr. Ma.s.siter's records have been thinned somewhat over the years. Why clog up the filing cabinets with information on innocent people, after all? Nevertheless, you will need to read these before we talk to this night watchman tomorrow. It'll soon be clear why."

Peroni eyed the folder in front of him. "A week, they said. That's all we have. After that it turns nasty for us. Again."

Falcone sniffed at the grappa that had just arrived, tasted it with an approving lick of his thin lips, then thanked the waitress. Costa watched him, concerned. Spirits never used to be a part of the inspector's routine.

"A week should be ample. I don't think this is complicated, Gianni. It's just . . . not as straightforward as it might appear. The locals want a result that leaves the Arcangeli clear to sell their little island and then places Hugo Ma.s.siter on a pedestal from which he can lord it over the crooked pen-pushers who put him there. This is their city, not ours. I'm indifferent to both prospects. There's no reason why we can't deliver. We need to get to the bottom of this spontaneous combustion idea, naturally. We need to think about the question of keys too, and I'm not sure I fully understand that yet either. And we really need to know more about Bella Arcangelo."

"What does the autopsy say about her?" Teresa asked.

"About as much as you can expect from a pile of dust. She was in the furnace. If she'd been there much longer . . ."

"You need to see her medical file," Teresa advised. "In the absence of real forensic, look for someone who'll have some actual records. And that phone. I don't need to tell you what it probably means."

"An affair?" Emily wondered.

"Something she wanted to keep quiet, certainly. Let's not run ahead of ourselves," Falcone cautioned.

Emily gazed around the table, dismayed. "This is a vacation?" she wondered aloud.

Falcone picked up the report on Ma.s.siter, weighed it in his hand, then let the thing fall on the table. "This is a free ticket into the Isola degli Arcangeli. Talk to Hugo Ma.s.siter, Emily. Take a look at what he's doing there. See if it's really the charitable act he's making out it is. I'd value your professional opinion."

"I didn't come to Venice to give professional opinions."

Falcone raised his gla.s.s. "Of course not! You came here for the sights. And the company. And you'll have both. Once we've put this little domestic drama to bed and freed ourselves to return to civilisation. Salute! Salute!"

None of them moved an inch.

"Leo?" Teresa asked. "What the h.e.l.l were these art police in Verona like? You've come back different somehow."

"Improved, I hope."

"I said different."

Falcone toasted them all again. "They weren't police, actually. They were Carabinieri. Some of the nicest and most interesting people I've met in a long time."

Even Teresa Lupo was lost for words at that. Leo Falcone, the original version, wouldn't have been seen dead with the Carabinieri.

"Salute!" this odd, half-familiar stranger in their midst said again. this odd, half-familiar stranger in their midst said again.

Five bright clear vials of grappa c.h.i.n.ked around the table, not all with the same degree of vigour.

Costa discreetly poured his gla.s.s into the coffee cup and caught Emily's eye. He knew she was intrigued, in spite of herself. There were consolations too. This wasn't Rome. There were no murderous hoods or lunatics on the prowl. It was, as Falcone said, a self-contained tragedy awaiting resolution. The answers lay somewhere out on the lagoon, in Murano's dark alleyways and on the Isola degli Arcangeli.

"So, Nic," Falcone asked, "tell me. I have a duty to train you now. One day you will want to be more than a mere agente agente."

"Tell you what?" Costa asked, a little uncomfortable that Falcone should take such a direct interest in him at that moment.

"What's changed after our discussion here tonight?"

He thought about that, thought about the keys and the door, Bella Arcangelo and the tragic figure her dying husband must have cut on that odd island across the water.

"What's changed," Costa said, "is the question. We're no longer trying to understand the means Uriel Arcangelo used to kill his wife. But why, how and with whom the late Bella appears to have conspired to kill him."

"Bravo!" Falcone declared, laughing, toasting him with his gla.s.s. "An inspector in the making!"

IN THE DAZZLING LIGHT OF THE LAGOON MORNING, THE police launch sped across the s.h.i.+ning expanse of water that separated Venice from Sant' Erasmo. Nic Costa sat up front, enjoying the breeze, trying to extract some local information out of Goldoni, the Venetian cop who was their boatman for the day, and thinking about the avid, enthusiastic way Emily had read the report on Hugo Ma.s.siter over breakfast, wondering if it was right for her to become involved. Her enthusiasm was, in part, fired by his own interest in the Englishman, which might well be misplaced. Dragging her into his obsession made him uneasy. police launch sped across the s.h.i.+ning expanse of water that separated Venice from Sant' Erasmo. Nic Costa sat up front, enjoying the breeze, trying to extract some local information out of Goldoni, the Venetian cop who was their boatman for the day, and thinking about the avid, enthusiastic way Emily had read the report on Hugo Ma.s.siter over breakfast, wondering if it was right for her to become involved. Her enthusiasm was, in part, fired by his own interest in the Englishman, which might well be misplaced. Dragging her into his obsession made him uneasy.

Even so, hindsight was pointless. Almost as pointless as trying to get Goldoni talking. The Venetian cop seemed to know the unseen channels of this inland sea by heart, never referring to a chart or a dial, just pointing the vessel in the direction of the Adriatic, setting the speed to cruise, changing tack when necessary, and picking at a pack of cigarettes throughout. Costa didn't even know how he understood where to head on the wide expanse of low countryside now looming ahead of them. Sant' Erasmo, in spite of its size, had no resident police presence, Goldoni had said. Most of the locals-the matti, matti, the crazies-rarely used their cars to go elsewhere, so there were few traffic issues. There was just one bar and a couple of restaurants. Tourists were tolerated but never fleeced. There was nothing to occupy a cop on the vast, flat green farmland, though it covered a larger surface area than Venice itself. Just fields and fields of fruits and vegetables-artichokes and peppers, rocket and grapes-and a small flotilla of battered craft to ferry them to the Rialto markets each day. the crazies-rarely used their cars to go elsewhere, so there were few traffic issues. There was just one bar and a couple of restaurants. Tourists were tolerated but never fleeced. There was nothing to occupy a cop on the vast, flat green farmland, though it covered a larger surface area than Venice itself. Just fields and fields of fruits and vegetables-artichokes and peppers, rocket and grapes-and a small flotilla of battered craft to ferry them to the Rialto markets each day.

They were close enough now to allow Costa to make out a few rusting vehicles, clearly unfit for the road, lumbering along the bright margin between land and sky. He cast a glance back into the cabin. Falcone was there, leaning back in his seat, eyes closed, looking asleep. It was that kind of morning: hot, hazy and airless, a time for la.s.situde. Peroni was quietly scanning the report he should have read the night before. Costa looked at Goldoni, a man not much older than he, chewing on a fast-expiring cigarette in the face of the sea breeze.

"Have you heard of Hugo Ma.s.siter?" he asked. "He's an Englishman."

Goldoni sucked hard, then launched the b.u.t.t of his cigarette overboard and gave him a jaundiced stare.

"Heard of him," he said simply.

This was the battle they always faced with the locals. Extracting information was like pulling teeth, even with men who were supposed to be part of the same team.

"Good or bad?" Costa asked.

Goldoni smiled, a quick, fetching smile, with precious little sincerity in it. He reminded Costa of the gondoliers who chatted up the teenage girls back in the city, knowing they would never have the money to pay the fare, hoping there'd be a different kind of reward if the pursuit went on long enough. He looked more like them than a cop.

"Good guy," Goldoni replied. "Knows all the right people. What else is there to say?"

Maybe nothing, Costa thought. That was what the report claimed, and he was inclined to believe it for two reasons. First, if it was wrong, Venice had acquiesced to more than a simple bending of the rules. It had allowed murder-callous, cold bloodshed, which included the deaths of two police officers-to go unpunished. And second, because of Emily's objections. She had an American insistence on precision and certainty and applied it instinctively to the web of half-facts and rumours that the report repeated. There was, he knew, nothing concrete there, certainly nothing that could begin to justify any further police investigation. Just shadows in an old, dusty mirror. Idle talk which probably drifted in the wake of any rich and successful man who made mistakes, and enemies, during his career.

The file was the summary of a curious case that had occurred five years earlier. Among Ma.s.siter's many charitable interventions in the city was a biennial summer music school at La Pieta, the church connected with Vivaldi on the Riva degli Schiavoni not far from the Doge's Palace. During the last event-Ma.s.siter ceased them after this particular incident, on understandable grounds-he'd paid for the debut of a work by an unknown English composer, a student from Oxford, Daniel Forster. This was, Ma.s.siter later told officers, an unwise adventure into new territory. His own expertise lay in antiques-sculpture, painting, objets d'art. He knew nothing about music, but had been taken in by the apparently guileless and gifted Forster. What transpired was tragedy. Forster was no composer but a fraud who had stolen an unknown historical ma.n.u.script from the house of the retired antiquarian where he was staying. Anxious to keep the deception quiet, the young Englishman had conspired with the old man's housekeeper, one Laura Conti, to murder the collector and his American companion. As the police began to see through their deceit, the pair had then killed two officers from the main Questura at Piazzale Roma, one of them a woman leading the investigation.

What made the headlines even bigger, though, was Ma.s.siter's involvement. If the report was to be believed, Daniel Forster was so subtle in his engineering of the fraud that he succeeded in making Ma.s.siter appear a party to it too. After the death of the two police officers, Forster was taken into custody. He managed to convince officers that he was guilty of the deception, but not the murders. He served a short sentence and was released, only to take up immediately with Laura Conti, living as man and wife on the profits of the music he'd never written, and a book he produced about the affair.

Ma.s.siter, meanwhile, retired-fled seemed a more apposite word to Costa-to America and consulted his lawyers at length. After more than two years in exile he'd acted, filing a wealth of evidence to counter the claims in Forster's book, which he was able to remove from the shelves on the grounds of libel. A protracted series of legal cases followed, with Ma.s.siter's lawyers winning victory after victory in the courts, paving the way for his return, and finally winning a reopening of the original investigation into Forster and his lover. Before that could be concluded, the couple vanished. Ma.s.siter was able to return to Venice a vindicated man. Two warrants for the fugitives' arrest remained on file, not that anyone in the Questura seemed much interested in pursuing them. The closing piece in the report was some unsourced piece of police intelligence indicating the pair had gone on the run first to Asia, then possibly to South America, and a note, signed by Commissario Randazzo no less, who must have been working at the main Questura at the time, stating that it would be a waste of police money to expend resources chasing Forster and Conti. seemed a more apposite word to Costa-to America and consulted his lawyers at length. After more than two years in exile he'd acted, filing a wealth of evidence to counter the claims in Forster's book, which he was able to remove from the shelves on the grounds of libel. A protracted series of legal cases followed, with Ma.s.siter's lawyers winning victory after victory in the courts, paving the way for his return, and finally winning a reopening of the original investigation into Forster and his lover. Before that could be concluded, the couple vanished. Ma.s.siter was able to return to Venice a vindicated man. Two warrants for the fugitives' arrest remained on file, not that anyone in the Questura seemed much interested in pursuing them. The closing piece in the report was some unsourced piece of police intelligence indicating the pair had gone on the run first to Asia, then possibly to South America, and a note, signed by Commissario Randazzo no less, who must have been working at the main Questura at the time, stating that it would be a waste of police money to expend resources chasing Forster and Conti.

Hugo Ma.s.siter was, in the eyes of the Venetian police, an innocent man who'd been badly wronged by false accusations, and spent heavily to refute them. Could this explain the city's desire to placate him? Some innate sense of guilt? Costa thought this unconvincing. All the same, it was an interesting story. He found himself wis.h.i.+ng he could read more about this particular case. Or better, spend a few hours in the company of the missing Daniel Forster and Laura Conti. The couple had a substantial talent, it seemed to him, to create such a successful alternative version of their crimes, one that fooled a good few people before collapsing under the weight of Ma.s.siter's legal team. But all that would be a luxury. It was difficult to see how what had happened five years before had any bearing whatsoever on the problems of the Arcangeli. Apart from one curious, doubtless coincidental fact. The dead antiquarian who'd been murdered by Daniel Forster, who then tried to pin the blame on Ma.s.siter, was called Scacchi, cousin to the same Sant' Erasmo farmer they were now about to visit, the last man to see Uriel Arcangelo alive.

Venice was a small place, Costa reminded himself. Families interlocked in many different ways over the years. This was, surely, nothing but coincidence, though one worthy of scrutiny before they set it aside.

He climbed back down into the boat and watched Peroni finis.h.i.+ng the last of the report. Falcone still appeared to be slumbering.

"What do you make of it?" Costa asked softly as his partner turned the final page.

Peroni frowned. "I was brought up to believe there was never smoke without fire. This Englishman moves in some queer circles, Nic. Although he seemed quite pleasant to me, I must admit."

"The company you keep doesn't make you a murderer," Falcone interjected without moving so much as an eyelid. "It just tells us he's very well connected."

"Four people died," Costa objected. "Two of them were police officers."

Falcone opened his eyes and gave him an icy glance. "It's not our case. Not unless it has some relevance to the Arcangeli. Which I doubt."

"Then why give us the report to read?" Peroni wondered.

Falcone seemed disappointed by the question. "Because I like my men to be informed! And to know with whom they're dealing. Ma.s.siter is a man of substance who has very successfully dismissed a series of very severe allegations. As far as the authorities are concerned-as far as we're we're concerned-he's spotlessly clean and always has been. He's also probably a little short of ready cash at the moment, after years of paying out for lawyers." concerned-he's spotlessly clean and always has been. He's also probably a little short of ready cash at the moment, after years of paying out for lawyers."

"He said that himself," Peroni pointed out.

"Exactly," Falcone agreed amiably. "Which is one reason to believe he's telling us the truth. Now we know what he is, let's just concentrate on the case we do do have. I ran Piero Scacchi's name through the station records. Not a thing, except for some noncommittal interview when his cousin got killed. About all that reveals is the fact the two of them apparently weren't close enough for the old man to leave Piero anything in his will. Everything went to Forster. It was probably forged. Is there an officer on the island we could pump?" have. I ran Piero Scacchi's name through the station records. Not a thing, except for some noncommittal interview when his cousin got killed. About all that reveals is the fact the two of them apparently weren't close enough for the old man to leave Piero anything in his will. Everything went to Forster. It was probably forged. Is there an officer on the island we could pump?"

Costa shook his head. "Not a soul. Apparently Sant' Erasmo doesn't merit a police presence."

Peroni laughed. "You're kidding me. This place is huge."

"Yes," Costa agreed. "But the population's just a couple of hundred people. I guess there's no point."

"My kind of town," Peroni said.

"We'll have to make up our own minds then." Falcone looked disappointed. "Here's one other piece of information I got out of records this morning, while you two were taking breakfast in bed. Bella's brother has a record."