'Piero,' he said. 'What are you doing here?'
'Waiting for her boat,' the old man said.
Vincenzo's heart sank. It was usually in the afternoons that Piero came here on his fruitless mission. If he'd started coming so late at night, he must be getting worse.
'I don't think there are any more boats tonight,' he said, laying his hand on Piero's shoulder.
'There's one more,' Piero said calmly. 'She'll be on that.'
'Piero, please-' It tore him apart to see the frail old man standing in the cold wind, clinging onto futile hope.
'There it is,' Piero said suddenly.
In the distance they could see lights moving towards them. Sick at heart, Vincenzo watched as it made its slow journey.
'She went to Murano,' Piero said. 'I put her on the boat here this morning.'
'Her? You mean Julia?'
'Of course. Who did you think I meant?'
'Well-I was a bit confused. I probably had too much to drink. What's this about Murano?'
'She went there looking for someone called Bruce Haydon.'
After a moment they both saw her standing by the rail. As the boat drew nearer she seemed to notice them suddenly. A smile broke over her face and she waved.
The two men waved back, and Vincenzo saw that Piero's face wore a look of total happiness. He wondered who the old man was seeing on the approaching boat.
At last it reached the landing stage and passengers came streaming off. Piero went forward, his arms outstretched, and Julia hugged him eagerly.
'You're back,' he said. 'You came home.'
'Home,' she said. 'Yes, that's what I was thinking.'
'Thank goodness you got back safely,' Vincenzo said. 'We were a bit concerned.'
She seemed to see him for the first time.
'There was no need,' she replied. 'I wasn't lost.'
'We didn't know that. Well, it doesn't matter. You're safe now.'
The three of them began to walk back across St Mark's Piazza and into the labyrinth of canals and little alleys that led home. Vincenzo kept firm hold of her arm, until she firmly disengaged herself.
She was angry with him again for knowing her secret-that she'd been in prison-even though she herself had disclosed it. And she was angry with herself for doing so.
'I'm all right,' she said. 'I don't need help.'
'Yes, you do. Even prickly, awkward you. And don't walk away from me when I'm trying to talk to you.'
'Don't talk to me when I'm trying to walk away.'
'If you aren't the most-'
'It's no use trying to reason with her,' Piero said. 'I've tried, but it's pointless.' He added in a deliberately provocative tone, 'After all, she's a woman.'
Julia turned and walked backwards, her eyes fixed on him.
'I'd stamp on your feet if I had the energy,' she teased,
Piero's answer to this was a little dance. 'You couldn't do it,' he asserted. 'I used to dance leading roles with the Royal Ballet in London.'
She began to imitate him, and they hopped back and forth while passers-by gave them a wide berth, and Vincenzo watched them, grinning.
Later, as the three of them sat by the stove Vincenzo said, 'Did things go well?'
'No,' she said robustly, 'things went just about as badly as they could. The people I went to see are on a cruise. I missed them by three days, and they won't be back until January. I had an album of pictures of the man I'm seeking, and on the way home it fell overboard. So now I don't even have that.'
Vincenzo frowned. 'For someone who's just lost everything you're astonishingly cheerful.'
'I'm not cheerful, just mad. Mad-angry, not mad-crazy I've been acting like a wimp, but now I'm done with weakness. When the pictures went overboard I was devastated for a whole minute, but then something inside me said, "That's it! Time to fight back.'"
'The man you're looking for,' Vincenzo said carefully, 'is he anything to do with-what you told me last night?
'Anything to do with my being in prison? Yes, he put me there. He cheated and lied and managed to get me locked up for his crime.' She surveyed them both. 'He's my husband.'
Piero turned his head slowly. Vincenzo stirred.
'My name isn't Julia. It's Sophie Haydon. My husband was Bruce Haydon. My mother warned me against him, but I wouldn't listen. We were always a little uneasy with each other after that.'
'What about your father?' Piero asked.
'I barely knew him. He died when I was a baby. Bruce and I were married over nine years ago. We had a daughter the next year, a gorgeous little girl called Natalie. I loved her to bits. She-she's almost nine now.'
Her voice shook on the words, and she hurried on as though to prevent the others noticing.
'Bruce had a little business, import, export. It wasn't doing well and he hated it that I earned more than him. I was working as an art restorer, getting plenty of clients, starting to be employed by museums and great houses.
'And then there was a spate of art thefts, all from houses where I'd been working. Of course the police suspected me. I knew all about the keys and burglar alarms.'
She fell silent again, staring into space for a long time. Then she jumped to her feet and began to pace up and down, her feet making a hollow, desolate sound on the tiles.
'Go on,' Vincenzo said in a strained voice. 'I was charged and put on trial.' She gave a harsh laugh. 'Bruce made me a wonderful speech about fighting it together. And I believed him. We loved each other, you see.' She gave a brief, mirthless laugh. 'That's really funny.'
She fell silent. Neither of the other two moved or spoke, respecting her grief.
'In the last few days before the trial,' she went on at last, 'my mind seemed to be working on two levels at once. On one, I just couldn't believe that they could find me guilty. On the other, I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew they were going to take me away from Bruce and Natalie, and I spent every moment I could with them. Bruce and I-'
She stopped. It was better not to remember those passionate nights, his declarations of undying love, lest she go mad.
'We took Natalie on a picnic. On the way back we stopped in a toy shop and she fell in love with a rabbit. So I bought it for her and she hugged it all the way home. When the trial began I'd say goodbye to her in the morning and she'd clutch that rabbit for comfort. When I came home she'd still be clutching him. The neighbour who was looking after her said she never let go of him all day.
'On the last day of the trial I got ready to leave home and Natalie began to cry. She'd never done that before, but this time it was as though she knew I wasn't coming back. She clung to me with her arms tight about my neck, crying "No, Mummy. Mummy, don't go, please don't go-please, Mummy-'"
She was shuddering, forcing herself to speak through the tears that coursed down her cheeks.
'In the end they had to force her arms away from around my neck, while she screamed and screamed. Then she curled up on the sofa, clutching her rabbit and sobbing into his fur. That was the last time I ever saw her. All she knew was that I went away and never came back. Wherever she is now, whatever she's doing, that's her last memory of me.'
She swung around suddenly and slammed her hand down on the back of a chair, clinging onto it and choking in her agony. Vincenzo rose quickly and went to her, but she straightened up before he could touch her.
'I'm all right. Where was I?'
'The trial,' he said gently.
'Oh, yes. They found me guilty. Bruce came to see me in prison a couple of times. He kept promising to bring Natalie "next time", but he never did. And then one day he didn't come. My mother told me he'd vanished, taking our little girl.
'I don't remember the next few days clearly. I know I became hysterical, and for a while I was on suicide watch. That was six years ago, and I haven't seen either of them since.
'It was him, you see. He'd copied my keys, picked my brains. He'd drive me to work and ask me to show him around, "Because I'm so interested, darling." So he knew what to look for, how to get in, how to turn off the alarm. Sometimes there were security staff, but they trusted him because he was with me. And everything he learned he sold to a gang of art thieves.