James Becker - The Nosferatu Scroll

And then she heard a noise. Very faintly, and from somewhere at the far end of the cellar, it was like a distant whispering of several people, a sound which seemed to be getting slightly louder, though Marietta wasn’t even sure of this.

‘Who’s there?’ she yelled at last, in as strong and determined a voice as she could muster.

There was no response, except for a slight and temporary reduction in the volume of the sound, which then continued just as before.

Marietta listened again. What was it? Where could it be coming from?

With a sudden start she’d realized what it was.

And then she screamed.

The following morning, Bronson and Angela lingered over breakfast. Sitting at a corner table in the hotel’s small dining room, surrounded by the remains of their meal, they were trying to decide where to visit next in Venice. They’d already been to some of the principal attractions in the centre of the city, and had spent an expensive but pleasant afternoon wandering around the Piazza San Marco, climbing to the top of the Campanile to take in the spectacular views which that vantage point offered. In fact, they both decided that they preferred the much smaller Piazzetta San Marco, the open space which lay on the south side of the piazza, near the Doge’s Palace, and which served as a connection between the piazza and the waters of the Grand Canal.

‘How about Murano?’ Bronson suggested. ‘Glass-making has always fascinated me. According to this guidebook, the demonstrations there are free, and that’s not a word you normally associate with Venice.’

‘That’s this island here, isn’t it?’ Angela asked, pointing at the map in her own book.

Bronson nodded. ‘Yes, though it’s actually a group of six islands, not just one. And apparently there are lots of interesting little shops and boutiques there which you can have a root around in. We can take a number forty-one or forty-two vaporetto from the Fondamente Nuove stop, and it’s not that far away — the next stop after San Michele, in fact.’

But a few moments later, it became obvious to both of them that they weren’t going to be able to visit Murano or, at least, not that morning.

The dining-room door swung open, and the hotel receptionist peered inside. Spotting Bronson and Angela, she pointed them out to somebody waiting just outside. A moment later, two Italian police officers walked in, and crossed briskly to the table where they were sitting.

‘Signor Bronson?’ the first officer asked.

From the insignia on his uniform, Bronson guessed he was the equivalent of a sergeant, and the other man probably a constable. He nodded.

The officer pulled out a notebook, flipped through it until he found what he was looking for, and glanced at something written on the page.

‘I understand you speak Italian,’ he said, and Bronson nodded again. ‘Where were you last night?’

‘What?’

‘I asked where you were last night,’ the police officer repeated.

‘I understood what you said,’ Bronson said, ‘but I don’t know why you’re asking me this.’

‘There was an incident, and we are trying to establish the movements of anybody who might have been involved. It’s routine.’

Bronson didn’t like the sound of that. In his experience, whenever a policeman assured a suspect that a particular line of questioning was ‘routine’, it usually meant that it was anything but.

‘What sort of incident?’ he asked, deciding to play along. He knew he had absolutely nothing to worry about, whatever the ‘incident’ might be. ‘I was here, in this hotel, after we got back from the Isola di San Michele. Then we went out for a late dinner, probably at about nine, and returned to the hotel just after eleven. We were in our room all night until about an hour ago, when we came down for breakfast.’

The carabinieri officer noted down Bronson’s answer, then looked at him again. ‘Can anyone substantiate your account, Signor Bronson?’

‘I paid for the meal at the restaurant with a credit card,’ he replied, ‘so that will establish where I was between about nine and eleven. After that, Angela and I were together, and as far as I’m aware nobody else saw us after we came back to the hotel.’

The officer frowned, and Bronson could tell that his answers hadn’t satisfied him.

‘If you can tell me what incident you’re talking about, and the time it took place, we might be able to help.’

The officer shrugged. ‘There was a break-in at the mortuary last night, and some damage was done.’

‘What’s he saying, Chris?’ Angela asked.

Bronson briefly translated what the officer had just told him.

‘Somebody burgled the mortuary?’ Angela sounded incredulous. ‘Why on earth would anyone want to do that?’

‘Was anything taken?’ Bronson asked. ‘And when did it happen?’

‘We think the break-in occurred at about two or three in the morning. No valuables were stolen, as far as I know, apart from a camera.’

‘Then I have no alibi,’ Bronson said, ‘except that my partner is a very light sleeper, and if I had got up and left the room, I’m sure she would have heard me. What damage was done?’

‘You saw a corpse, I believe, on the Isola di San Michele, at the Cimitero Comunale?’ Bronson nodded. ‘Whoever broke into the mortuary removed its head, and scattered all the other bones and pieces of pottery, as if they were looking for something. And they stole an expensive digital camera.’

Bronson leaned forward. He’d guessed that it had to be something to do with the events of the previous night; otherwise he could see no possible reason why the Italian police would want to question him.

‘It wasn’t us,’ he said firmly. ‘If you want to search our room, you’re very welcome to do so. We’ve got nothing to hide, and absolutely no reason to steal an ancient skull or take a camera.’

The Italian officer shrugged again and closed his notebook with a snap. As he did so, his radio emitted a static-laden squeak, and he turned his head and pressed the transmit button to respond. For some reason the radio reception in the hotel wasn’t particularly good, but despite that Bronson was able to make out a few phrases of the message that the carabinieri control room was passing. One in particular seized his attention: ‘there’s been another, but we’ve found this one’. Taken in isolation, this phrase seemed innocuous enough, but it clearly meant something more to the sergeant, who immediately gestured to his companion to leave the room.

‘How long will you be staying in Venice?’ he asked Bronson.

‘For the rest of this week.’

‘Good. We may need to speak to you again.’

‘So what the hell was all that about?’ Angela demanded, when they were once again on their own.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Bronson replied, ‘but I intend to find out.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to follow those two. Something’s going on, and it must be linked to that corpse we saw in the cemetery last night.’

Marietta Perini woke with a yelp of fear as something brushed across her face. Her eyes snapped open. She rubbed desperately at her cheeks, but whatever had touched her — a fly or spider, or whatever it was — had disappeared. The rattle of the chain that secured her left wrist to the wall, and the impenetrable blackness that surrounded her, only confirmed her terror. The nightmare of her dreams was her living reality.

She ran her hands over her body, checking that no other insects were anywhere on her skin or clothes, because she now knew the source of the noise that had so alarmed her the previous night. It was the sound of dozens, maybe hundreds, of tiny pointed feet moving across the flagstone floor and along the walls. The cellar was alive with cockroaches.