David Hewson - The Lizard's Bite

“I said this was a matter to be conducted indoors,” Costa reminded Falcone with undisguised bitterness.

To his surprise, Falcone nodded, looking repentant. He couldn’t take his eyes off the distraught Raffaella, clutching her brother.

“I heard you, Nic. I’m sorry. I keep trying to apply the rules I use in Rome. It just doesn’t work here, does it? Jesus . . .”

The carpenters were slinking towards the bridge, back to town. Father and son, for sure. They had that closeness Nic had seen on so many Murano faces, a tight, conspiratorial intimacy that formed a barrier to the world outside.

“No matter,” Falcone grumbled. “It’s out of the bag now. I want to see this Bracci character. I need to know what he looks like.”

Peroni nodded at the departing pair. “We’re going to have to hurry if we want to be first,” the big cop observed.

Falcone sniffed. He looked tired. Unsettled. The heat was getting to all of them, Costa thought. This was all supposed to be so easy.

“We’ll wait,” the inspector ordered, watching Raffaella Arcangelo detach herself from her brother, tears staining her cheeks. “I owe someone an apology.”

Costa wondered about that. Falcone rarely said sorry. It wasn’t in the nature of the man. Then the phone began to vibrate in his jacket. He took it out and heard Emily’s excited voice on the line. He walked away, intent on keeping this conversation, at least, private.

“Nic?”

“Hi. How are things?”

“Fine. You sound down. Is everything OK?”

“Not so great, to be honest.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I have a favour to ask. Can you meet me at the party tonight? And bring my clothes? The evening dress and everything. I laid them out on the bed. No creases, please.”

He couldn’t get a grip on what she was saying. “I don’t understand.”

“You wanted me to get close to him,” she replied, a note of reproach in her voice. “I’ve been working in the palazzo most of the day. I won’t be finished in time to go back to the apartment. It’s amazing here. Where are you?”

Automatically, his eyes went up to the vast glass palace next door. The sun was so bright all he saw was its fiery reflection. He was just a minute’s walk away from her. Watching the Arcangeli try to pick up the pieces of a bitter row, wondering what would happen to the Braccis now that Bella’s secret was about to go public.

“Outside the fornace but I don’t think we’ll be here long. Is there anything else you need?”

“Just you,” she replied sweetly. “And some time. I’ve got news.”

Costa listened to her confident tones with unease. She was supposed to talk to Massiter, nothing more. But it wasn’t in her nature to hold back, not when some prize lay in her grasp.

“Good or bad?”

“Maybe neither. But it’s instructive either way. Got to go now . . .”

The line went dead. Nic Costa glanced again at the gleaming palazzo along the quay. Emily was in there somewhere, out of reach.

SHE PUT DOWN THE PHONE AND LOOKED AROUND THE small storage room at the back of Hugo Massiter’s apartment, built directly against the windowless brick wall that formed the entire rear of the palace, a supporting buttress of ugly clay that visitors were never meant to notice. Nor was anyone meant to be witness to what lay before her now: bundles of letters tied together with string, piles of photo albums, document boxes all bearing the label of the same private detective agency based in New York, a name she knew, a solid, expensive firm that worked only for the most discerning of clients. Hugo had excused himself as soon as she’d issued orders for the new work. Lunch, he said. Then a meeting, returning around four. Emily had borrowed overalls to work alongside the teams of carpenters, plasterers and painters turning the bare exhibition space into the location for a Venetian ball, made sure they understood what they were doing, and come to the conclusion that they were, under direction, good enough for the job. Then, when she was satisfied Hugo wasn’t about to return suddenly, she went upstairs to the apartment and tried to remember the lessons she’d received at the Academy in Quantico, in what now seemed another lifetime. Searching homes without leaving a trace was an art, one she’d almost mastered because she possessed what it took: care, a good memory and a feeling for the personality of the person into whose life she was intruding. Hugo Massiter was a careful, lonely, insular man, one capable of hard decisions without much regret, but scarred, too, by some event in his past.

The room was beyond the large, elegant kitchen, locked. She’d finally found the key in a small terra-cotta bowl next to the shiny new cooking range. In private homes there was always a key, her instructors had told her. Usually in an obvious place.

Behind the door lay a treasure trove of material on a single occurrence in Hugo Massiter’s life: the disproved allegations of murder she’d read about at Nic’s that morning. And two people: Daniel Forster and Laura Conti, in whom he had placed his trust.

Her hand fell automatically on the detective agency reports. These were filings of sightings of the fugitives after Forster and Conti fled Venice. Or so the authors claimed. Emily was sufficiently familiar with intelligence reports to read between the lines. There was a grey area between rumour and fact in most of them. Hugo’s money seemed to be buying much of the former and little of the latter. The reports talked of the couple’s presence in various parts of the world—Africa, Asia and South America—but gave not a shred of hard supporting evidence. Photos, handwriting, phone conversations . . . all the artefacts that helped shore up vague suspicions were noticeably absent. The final letter from the agency was curt to the point of rudeness. Hugo’s correspondence with them was absent but it was clear he had been questioning both the cost and the effectiveness of the operation. He’d tasked the agency with finding Daniel Forster and Laura Conti. They hadn’t even managed to prove the pair still existed. The contract had come to an end some six months before, with the promise of litigation over unpaid fees.

Emily closed the file, wondering what it told her. Hugo desperately needed to track down two people who had almost put him in jail. Why? He didn’t need them for his own security. The authorities now accepted he’d been wrongly accused. What motive could there be apart from revenge? Except . . . Hugo Massiter was vain, ambitious, unquestionably ruthless in business matters. But he had a firm sense of self-knowledge. He was acutely aware of what kind of man he was. Revenge would surely have seemed petty to him, an unnecessary reminder of a pain still waiting to heal.

This impression was only confirmed by what she saw in the photo albums. They consisted of formal pictures from the series of music schools Hugo had sponsored in La Pietà over the years. Rows and rows of teenagers, all in smart black evening dress, some clutching fiddles and violas, smiling behind Hugo, who stood proudly to the front. And, in the final year, another figure. Someone who could only be the young, seemingly ingenuous Daniel Forster, next to his patron, a priceless music score in hand, one he had claimed for his own.

Hugo had his arm around Forster. It was a paternal, affectionate gesture, though one which hinted, also, at ownership. I made you, he seemed to be saying. Surely that would render the final humiliation—being linked to the young man’s own misdeeds—doubly difficult to bear?