Michael Morley - The Venice conspiracy

Vito and Valentina are astounded to see a head-and-shoulders shot of Bale pop up, surrounded by dozens of his paintings.

'You're shocked, eh? Welcome to America, where even serial killers have the rights to express themselves and become famous.'

Vito's truly amazed. 'He's done hundreds, literally hundreds of paintings.'

'Scroll down, pick one and double-click on it,' says Lerner. 'You'll be able to see it full frame and zoom in on any sections you want. You can get a better look online than if you were stood next to the real thing.'

Valentina works the mouse as she talks. 'So Bale would paint something that had hidden messages in it. Give it away to the charity. They'd innocently post it on the net, and then his followers would access the website and decode his instructions.'

'You got it,' says Lerner. 'Simple when you know how.'

'Isn't everything?' Vito can't take his eyes off the bottom of the screen. 'There's one posted six days ago.' He does a double-take. 'Have you seen it?'

'Sure we have,' says Lerner. 'It mean anything to you?'

Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia The ritual is in ruins.

Gatusso no longer cares about crossing the magic lines of the rectangle. He bolts after Tanina.

Tommaso just manages to block his way.

They both crash to the ground in a heap. The torch tumbles from Tommaso's hands. He's lost what weapon he had.

Now the acolytes are on him like a pack of famished dogs. Vicious blows pound his face, knuckles rip flesh from his cheeks.

Throughout it all, Tommaso clings to Gatusso's ankle. He's not letting go. He might not have the skill to fight, but he can hang on – hang on for dear life.

Someone kicks his arm. Nerve endings jangle but he still keeps his grip. Every second he holds on is another step Tanina takes to safety.

Something wooden – a makeshift club – smashes against his wrist. He loses the feeling in his hand. Loses his hold.

Gatusso starts to get up.

Tommaso lurches forward. Falls across Gatusso's legs. The high priest lashes out at him.

The unseen club comes down again.

Connects perfectly.

Tommaso's skull cracks open.

Pain shoots through his eyes and temples. Blackness rolls in. Face down in the stinking earth, he prays Tanina is already far away.

He doesn't feel the next blow. Or the one after that.

He's dead.

Gatusso wriggles free of the monk's corpse. Acolytes steady him and he looks across at Lydia. The accidental fire has cremated her. She's nothing more than a pile of blackened bones.

He turns to the remaining Satanists. 'We need to find the girl. Spread out.' He points. 'Two of you that way. Two around by the shore. The rest of you, come with me.'

Ahead in the distance, Tanina doesn't know where she is. She has no idea where she's running to. But she's running. Faster than she's ever done.

Unseen brambles snag her feet. She stumbles. Knocks into a low-hanging branch. Drops one of the tablets.

It's gone. Vanished. Lost in the dense grass, weeds, brambles and rutted earth.

She stops.

Scrambles for it. Finding it seems almost more important than getting away. Her fingers feel something.

Twigs.

She throws them to one side.

Not twigs. Bones!

Human bones.

The tablet has slipped into a shallow grave. One of dozens on the island. Sad stacks of dead left by the plague.

Tanina hears rustling behind her.

They're coming.

The tablet bearing the demon's face lies somewhere in the grave.

She swallows hard and digs both hands deep into the trench of bones and dust. Not to find the artefacts, but to find a place to hide.

Footsteps crackle on twigs all around her. Torchlight flickers through the long black limbs of wintry trees and voices grow closer.

Tanina lies in the foot of the mass grave, her body covered with a rotting blanket of skulls, ribs and legs.

The voices are right above her. She dare not scream or move.

Her skin is covered in maggots and worms, woken from their indolence by the smell of fresh meat. She can feel them slithering across her neck, making their way patiently to the juicy jelly of her eyes and the warm orifices of her face.

Still she does not move.

Her hair is alive with creatures, her scalp unbearably itchy, and she all but panics when she has to blow some form of creature off her lips.

But she suffers it all. Suffers it in a silence that her mother would have been proud of. Suffers it all until daybreak.

Tanina moves slowly.

She strains to listen for any trace of movement or voices in the woods. There are none.

She is safe.

She sits upright, scattering bleached white bones and gasping for air.

In a near frenzy she rubs her hands through her hair, scratching hard at her infested scalp, vigorously shaking out the insects rooted there.

Her heart's beating so fast she fears it will burst.

Tanina can see the water of the lagoon and longs to run into it. Instead, she forces herself to plunge back into the grave and search for the missing tablet.

Right at the bottom of the trench, below skeleton after skeleton of perished Venetians, she finally finds the slab of silver.

Sweat is dribbling off her. Her skin raw with bites and blotches. Nevertheless, she is now in possession of all three tablets. The fact reminds her of her mother's wish for them to be kept apart, not brought together.

So be it.

As soon as she has escaped, she'll hide them. Somewhere undiscoverable. Somewhere far, far from the grounds of this place.

She looks around. There is water but no boat, and she knows she cannot risk looking for one. Nor can she contemplate staying in Venice for long either. She gathers rotten planks from around the side of the grave and finds more wood along the shoreline.

Quickly, Tanina walks into the dark lagoon and ducks her head beneath the cool water. She emerges and shakes her hair, grateful for the brief respite from the dirt and the itching. Now she rips fabric from her sodden dress to bind the wood and form a precarious raft. Other strands she uses to secure the tablets to the largest plank.

Carefully, she re-enters the water. The contraption floats and seems to be holding.

She says a quick prayer – partly for her mother – mainly for the brother she never knew who gave his life so she might live.

Tanina takes a deep breath and pushes off from the shore.

If she makes it to the other side, she'll head south. Maybe Rome. Start a new life where no one will ever find her.

Present Day 6th June Carabinieri HQ, Venice Lars Bale's final painting turns out to be the serial killer's most confusing and complex work.

At first light, Vito gives up guessing and orders his team to find him an expert.

It comes in the form of forty-two-year-old Gloria Cucchi, a former head of art at the Universita Ca' Foscari Venezia and now owner of the highly respected Cucchi Galleries.

'It is indeed very complex,' she says, circling a high-resolution colour print of the untitled painting laid out on a long, glass conference table. 'Personally, I think the work is horrible, a complete miasma. Yet there is true beauty in its ugliness and flashes of genius, reminiscent of Picasso and Picabia.' She taps the print. 'These heavy cubes illustrate strength. They show square men, machos lifting things, perhaps titans of industry, finance or commerce, building a city.' She holds the edge of the A4-sized print and smiles. 'This angular cameo here is striking, it looks like a waterfall in the Canal Grande but he has it pouring blood, not water. How provocative!' She backs off from the print, changes her perspective, clears her mind of presumptions and prejudices, then dives back in again: 'Now I look more closely, I can see that he has borrowed style and substance from many artists. Certainly Dali, in the sense that there are multiple mirror images and some strokes of savage surrealism. Certainly Picabia too – there are faces whirling like demons in a mist.' She leans over the table like a long-necked bird about to peck at seed. 'But beneath it all is the most powerful influence of – Giovanni Canal.' She allows herself a smug smile. 'Better known as Canaletto. His father, Bernardo was also a painter, hence his sobriquet Canaletto – "little canal". Now, come around the other side, you'll see things somewhat more clearly.'