Alex Connor - Isle of the Dead

The priest sits fingering his rosary outside. He pays no mind to me, and so I watch the merchant’s wife pay for her sins to stay secret.

At first Vespucci thought to make me jealous. Thought I would bay at the moon for him. And so I took the writer as my lover …

Frowning, Nino stared at the words, remembering the portrait of Melania in the palazzo.

Provoked, Vespucci now thinks to take me from Aretino, tells me such tales, but I’ll have none of it. All lovers lie. Until, until …

His wife was found last evening in the Lido, stripped of her skin. He said he keeps it for her, promising to dress her when they meet in Hell. I still thought him a liar. A spinner of tales to court me, a cruel narrator scratching for some alchemy to keep me to his bed. I rolled upon him, begged to be given facts …

He told me, curled the words out with his tongue, spoke of how he peeled the skins away and hid them. He will not tell me where, he taunts me with it, speaks of adding more.

And now Claudia Moroni has been found. Vespucci promised to craft a garment for me, to fashion a chemise from her dead hide. Afraid, I left for the mainland.

I thought Vespucci would follow, but it wasn’t him. Instead came Aretino, begging my return. He said it was a jest, a bed sport, a bragging to make a woman moan …

I knew if I went back I would never leave again. I knew if I lay with Vespucci, felt his hands working my flesh, that he would work my soul.

When I next saw him he was washing himself, and the water that left his skin had blood in it.

Shaken, Nino pushed the notes aside and stood up. Melania, the Contessa di Fattori, had supplied Vespucci with his whores. Seraphina’s ancestor had colluded with a murderer. Willingly.

December 1555

The little Jewish girl I brought him has been found. Dead also … Aretino came to see me, lay against me in my bed, snuffled his girth against my back and pleaded Vespucci’s innocence. He tells me he is not what people say, and I should stand an ally to him. And I, drowsy with guilt, open my legs to him.

The portrait all of Venice talks about is nearly complete. Titian says nothing of it, only that it will be shown in the church where Vespucci worships. He says, come the last Sunday in December, the painting can be seen by any with the will to view it.

What Titian thinks of his sitter is impossible to know. Certainly he turns away from me whenever I approach and people have pinned papers to my door, condemning me.

‘The Whore of Venice’ I am called. Vespucci something else. His title, which will not grace his portrait – is that of Skin Hunter.

I know I will not live to see this black year’s end …

Melania, Contessa di Fattori, had been depraved. Her deviancy had kept her tied to a murderer, her sexuality condemning her.

Possibly that was where Seraphina had inherited her traits. It explained how it was possible for her to be an adulteress and pass off another man’s child as her husband’s. The young woman Nino had met in London weeks earlier had seemed uncomplicated, charming. Her death had been a shock. But now it was obvious why Seraphina had been the next victim. It wasn’t simply because of her relationship to the Contessa di Fattori, but because of her own sexual history.

They were alike, even in the way they met their end. Seraphina had not anticipated hers, but Melania had had a chance to escape – and had chosen not to. The fourth, and last, of the Skin’s Hunter’s victims, she was murdered and mutilated on 1 January, 1556.

While Nino was considering what he had just read, his mobile rang. He recognised the voice of Seraphina’s mother immediately.

‘Have you read the papers, Mr Bergstrom?’

‘Yes,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Have you?’

‘Should I?’

‘No, Contessa,’ Nino lied. ‘They’re of no importance. No importance at all.’

46

Tokyo, Japan

Jobo Kido wasn’t sure why, but the last three times he had gone online, there had been no response from the Vespucci website. Anxious, he had tried at different times of the day, with no success, until finally there was an answer.

Jobo: Where have you been?

Answer: What makes you think I’ve been anywhere?

Jobo: I couldn’t get a response.

Answer: I was angry with you. I don’t think you were very polite last time we spoke.

Jobo: I’m sorry.

Answer: You should be. If you want the Titian you play by my rules, not your own. It makes me wonder if you’ve been talking to someone.

Jobo: No, no one.

Answer: Not even the man with the white hair?

There was a long pause before Jobo answered gingerly.

Jobo: I don’t know who you mean.

Answer: Think very carefully, Mr Kido. Do you want the painting, or do you want to continue to lie to me and lose it? Who is the white-haired man?

His hands suspended over the keyboard, Jobo hesitated. If he gave Nino away would he be endangering him? But if he didn’t give him up, he would lose the Titian. He cursed inwardly. What was Nino Bergstrom to him? Until a few days ago, he had never met the man. Why should he give up such a prize to shield a comparative stranger?

All his life Jobo had been waiting to be at the top of his game. The Titian portrait would propel him into the artistic stratosphere, into that platinum orbit Triumph Jones and Farina Ahmadi inhabited. The portrait of Vespucci was his by rights.

Jobo: He’s called Nino Bergstrom.

Answer: What does he want?

Jobo: To catch you before you kill again.

Answer: Are you helping him?

Jobo: No.

Answer: Have you worked out the connection between the victims yet?

Jobo: No, how can I? I don’t know who the last victim is going to be.

Answer: What if I were to give you her name? Would you tell Mr Bergstrom? Or would you warn the victim?

Stunned, Jobo stared at the screen.

Answer: If you did either, you’d lose the Titian. So how much do you want it? Enough to sacrifice one life? Two lives?

Jobo: I’ll buy the painting off you.

Answer: It’s not for sale. It has to be earned. I’ll ask you again, Mr Kido. If I tell you the name of the next victim will you keep it a secret? Or will you let her die? If she dies, can you read about it later? Can you hear all the details and know you could have saved her? How much does the Titian really mean to you?

Agonised, Jobo stared at the words on the screen. His previous doubts had been annulled, his guilt suspended. And with Nino no longer sitting alongside him, Jobo Kido’s greed overrode his conscience.

Jobo: I want the Titian. I swear I won’t tell anyone who the next victim is.

Answer: Very good, Mr Kido. But if you’re not going to save her, why do you need to know? Until tomorrow.

On that note, the connection was severed.

47

England

He was watching her and thinking that he had chosen very well. She had an interest in his passion, a mutual connection, and she was young and attractive. Of course she was a whore, but she had to be or she wouldn’t be suitable.

The man stared at the photographs he had put on his computer, tilting his head to one side, his gaze tracing the line of her throat. Flaying a body wasn’t easy. At first he had presumed that it would be – merely a peeling away. But it hadn’t been like that at all. He had had to cut the flesh away from the muscle underneath, and that had taken sharp knives, not your usual kitchen utensils. In the end he had gone to a medical suppliers on Wigmore Street and bought a set of scalpels which had made skinning so much easier. Concentrating, he had sliced into the skin, making a V shape. When he had done that, he had lifted the bloodied flap and, holding it, had continued slicing it away from the body.