James Becker - The Nosferatu Scroll

‘He’s a descendant, yes, according to this,’ she reported to Marco. ‘Why is it important?’

He looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. ‘You really don’t understand, do you? It’s all in the blood. There’s nothing quite so important as the bloodline. That’s why you won’t find the name Carmelita Paganini listed anywhere on those pages. She wasn’t part of the sacred family, though she obviously wished she had been. But she did do one thing useful. She — or rather her diary — pointed us towards the correct grave on San Michele.’

Then the penny dropped. ‘The tomb of the twin angels?’ Angela said. ‘We found it, but I thought the name inscribed on it was Delaca.’

‘You were nearly right. I have men out on the island now, recovering what we need.’

Angela didn’t know what he meant by that remark, unless there was some other document or relic they needed hidden in that tomb as well.

Then there was an urgent double knock on the door. Before Marco could even get out of his seat, the door swung open and a man Angela hadn’t seen before stepped into the room. Obviously agitated, he strode over to Marco and held a brief but animated conversation with him. Part-way through, they both paused to stare across at Angela for a few seconds. Then Marco smiled. The other man pointed back towards the door, and then left the room.

‘What?’ Angela demanded, conscious that Marco was staring at her again.

‘I have good news and bad news for you, I suppose,’ he said. ‘The good news is that your ex-husband wasn’t killed when my men attacked him on the street, because he’s just been spotted chasing around the lagoon in a powerboat. The bad news is that he encountered two of my men in one of the canals in Venice and they shot him.’

Angela’s face displayed the turmoil of emotions flooding through her body as she absorbed Marco’s matter-of-fact statements, and for several seconds she found she couldn’t speak.

‘Is he …?’ she finally managed.

‘Dead?’ Marco supplied for her. ‘I’ve no idea. Probably. But whether he’s alive or dead makes no difference to you, here and now. The important thing is that he’s no longer of any concern to us. We now have both of the things that we needed, the scroll and the relic, and that’s all that matters. And we’ll be keeping you alive for a little while longer.’

Angela was starting to recover her composure. She knew Chris, and knew he had a habit of bouncing back. Just because he’d been shot at didn’t mean he was dead. At least, that’s what she would cling to. She turned slightly to face Marco.

‘You’re letting me live?’ she asked.

Marco nodded. ‘At least until you’ve finished the translation,’ he said, and walked across to her. ‘This scroll,’ he continued, pointing at the photocopied sheets on the desk in front of her, ‘is the most important document you’ll ever see. This is the source, the sacred record. This is what we’ve been seeking all these years. Forget Carmelita Paganini’s diary: this scroll contains the answers to every question we’ve ever wanted to ask. Translating it will keep you alive, at least for a few more hours.’

He paused and smiled. ‘In fact, if everything works out as we hope, whether you live or die might not matter one way or the other.’

Despite the veiled threat Bianchi had made for Bronson to stay away from the investigation, he had absolutely no intention of sitting around in his hotel room waiting for the phone to ring. Angela had to be on that island, and he was determined — after all he’d been through — to stay close to her.

This time he knew exactly where he was going, and steered a direct course from the mouth of the Canal Grande across the waterway and through the gap between the islands of Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore. Once he was clear of the water traffic around the islands, he opened the throttle and accelerated towards his destination. He kept his eyes open, looking for any sign of the police launch that Bianchi had said he’d be sending to the island to investigate. He saw several of the distinctive blue-and-white craft in the lagoon, but none appeared to be heading in the direction he was going.

After several minutes of travelling at almost full speed, Bronson reached the small islet where he’d beached the boat previously. He throttled back, bringing the powerboat to an almost complete stop about fifty yards away from the shore of the islet, and for a few moments considered his next course of action. The problem he’d had previously was that the bulk of the house on the larger island to the south of him obscured his view of the jetty where the two men must have landed. It would obviously be far better for him to find a position from which he could see this part of the island, if only to observe the arrival of the police launch — assuming, of course, that one was going to turn up.

Finally he made a plan. He would head south, towards the end of the lagoon, just like any other tourist exploring this part of Venice, then turn round and come back. That way he would achieve two things: he’d get a far better look at the island itself, and, with any luck, he’d find another island from which he’d be able to watch. At all costs he had to avoid alerting anybody on the island of his interest in them. In other words, he had to play the tourist card.

Steering the boat around the islet, he meandered south, sitting on the plastic seat in the powerboat and looking all around him, exactly as an innocent tourist would do. But behind his mirrored sunglasses, he was focusing on the island to his right.

As he’d observed earlier, the island was a reasonable size — big enough for the house to look comfortable in its setting — and as he steered the boat further south, a small inlet came into view. Within it, he could see a wooden jetty and beside it a launch, quite a bit larger than the powerboat Bronson had hired. The inlet wasn’t very big and as far as he could see, there wasn’t much room for any other vessels if the launch was moored there.

Then he noticed something else. Behind the house, and about midway between the property and the inlet, was an area of level ground that appeared to have been tarmacked, and on it he could just about make out something painted in white. Playing the tourist again, Bronson looked casually around him, then turned back to look once more towards the island. And now, from his slightly altered perspective, he could see exactly what was on the tarmac.

It was a large white circle, inside which was painted a letter ‘H’: a helicopter landing-pad, which made perfect sense. Bianchi had told him that the island was owned by a senior Italian politician, so travelling to the island by boat would probably be a last resort. It would be so much more impressive, and cater to the politician’s inevitable sense of his own importance, to arrive there by helicopter.

Bronson continued ambling gently south, past the island and towards a handful of others in the same loose group, most of which had houses built on them. Again, he tried to look like a tourist as he steered the craft around and past these islands.

About two hundred yards from the politician’s island was another very small island, upon which was a simple structure that looked something like a car port — just a flat roof resting on four vertical supports with a rough wooden table underneath it. Bronson guessed that was probably a picnic spot, the roof providing some shade from the heat of the midday sun. He looked closely at the island, trying to see if there was anyone ashore there. He glanced at his watch. It was now late afternoon in November, and unlikely to be in use. Certainly, it appeared to be deserted.