‘Observe, if you will, the lines on this vase,’ he said. ‘Lovely, simply lovely, the way it serpentines around to the back, don’t you think?’ He made a gossamer loop in the air with his hand, imitating the flow of the painted line across the front of the tall vase inside the case he was observing. ‘I’ve always found it remarkable, the eye for beauty these people had. Thousands of years ago, and still they were in love with beauty.’ Smiling, transforming himself from mere connoisseur to philosopher, he turned to Brunetti and asked, ‘Do you think that’s the secret of humanity, then, the love of beauty?’
When Brunetti made no response to this banality, La Capra let the subject drop and moved to the next case. With a small, private laugh, he said, ‘Dottoressa Lynch would have liked to see this.’
Something in his voice, the tone of dirty secrets, made Brunetti glance across at the case in front of which the other man stood. Inside he saw the same gourd-like shape that he remembered from the picture Brett had shown him. Upright and striding to the left was a human-bodied fox almost identical to the one painted on the vase in the photo Brett had shown him.
Unbidden, the thought was there. If La Capra was willing to show him this vase, then it was clear he no longer had anything to fear from Brett, the one person who could identify its origin. Brunetti wheeled around and took two long strides towards the door. Just before it, he stopped, turned his body to the side, and raised his right leg. With all his force, he kicked out at the door just below the lock. The violence of the kick shocked his entire body, but the door didn’t move.
Behind him, La Capra chuckled. ‘Ah, you Northerners are so impetuous. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to open for you, Signor Policeman, no matter how hard you kick at it. I’m afraid you’re my guest until Salvatore comes back from his errand.’ With complete confidence, he turned back towards the glass cases. ‘This piece here is from the first millennium before Christ. Lovely, isn’t it?’
* * * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
When he left the gallery, the young man was careful to lock the door behind him, leaving the key there in the lock. He was amused at the thought that his father would be safe with a policeman, of all people. The idea was so incongruous that he laughed outright as he walked down the corridor. His laughter died away when he opened the door at the end of the corridor and saw that, outside, it still poured. How could these people live with this weather, and with that sea of filthy black water that swelled up from the very pavements? He refused to admit it to himself, but he was afraid of that water, of what his foot might come in contact with when he walked through it or, worse, what might rub itself up against his legs or trickle down inside his boots.
But this, he believed, would be the last time he’d have to walk through it. Once this was done, once this matter was cleared up, he could go back inside and wait for the disgusting water to go back into the canals, the laguna, the sea, where it belonged. He felt no affinity for these frigid Adriatic waters, so different from the broad sweep of pure turquoise that spread out across the tranquil surface of the Mediterranean in front of their home in Palermo. He had no idea what had brought his father to buy a home in this filthy city. His father insisted that it was for the safety of his collection, that there was little chance of robbery here. But no one in Sicily would dare to rob the home of Carmello La Capra.
He was sure his father did it for the same reason he had the stupid collection of pots in the first place: to rise in the world and be considered a gentleman. Salvatore found this absurd. He and his father were gentlemen by virtue of their birth; they didn’t need the opinion of these stupid polentoni to tell them that.
He glanced again across the flooded courtyard, knowing that he would have to pull on boots and plough through the water to cross it. But the thought of what he would do when he reached the other side was enough to buoy up his thoughts; he had enjoyed playing with l’americana, but now it was time to finish the game.
He bent down and dragged on a pair of high rubber boots, yanking hard to pull them up over his shoes. They came to his knees and gaped wide there, their tops hanging open and limp, like the petals around the centre of an anemone. He pulled the door closed behind him and stomped heavily down the outer stairs, cursing the driving rain. Pushing water in front of him with every step, he forced his way across the courtyard towards the wooden door on the other side. Even in the short time since he had locked the door on l’americana, the water level had risen and now covered the bottom panel. Perhaps she had been in there long enough to have drowned. Even if she had managed to pull herself up into one of the large niches cut into the walls, it would be quick work to drown her. He regretted only that he wouldn’t have time to rape her. He had never raped a homosexual before; not a lesbian, at any rate, and he thought it was something he might enjoy. Well, another phone call might bring her singer friend here, and then he could have the chance. His father might object, but there was really no reason for him to know about it, was there? His father’s caution had denied him the pleasure of the first visit to l’americana. Gabriele and Sandro had been sent instead, and they’d made a mess of it. This muddle of violence, resentment and lust occupied him as he crossed the courtyard.
Prepared for the darkness that lay all around him, he pulled a torch from his jacket pocket and flashed it across the bar that held the low door closed. He shot it back and yanked the door towards him, pulling hard against the weight of water. A high-arched space stretched out in front of him. Chairs and tables floated on the oily surface of the water, stored there during the restoration and abandoned in what had once been an inner boat dock, sunk half a metre below the level of the courtyard and protected from the canal beyond by another heavy wooden door, this one secured by a chain. It would be a minute’s work, when he was finished with her, to open the door and float her out into the deeper water of the canal.
To his left, he heard the slap of water and turned the beam of the torch towards it. The eyes that gleamed back at him were too small and set too close together to be human; with a flick of its long tail, the rat turned away from the light and paddled off behind a floating box.
Lust vanished. He turned the light slowly to the right, pausing long enough to examine each of the small alcoves carved into the wall and now covered with a hand’s breadth of water. He saw her at last, slumped sideways in one of the alcoves, knees pulled up in front of her, head limp on top of them. The light lingered on her, but she didn’t move.
Nothing for it, then, but to cross the water to her and get it finished. He steeled himself and stepped off into the deeper water, extending his foot slowly until he was sure it rested securely on the first slimy step, and then the second. He cursed violently as he felt the water spill over the top and down inside his boot. For a moment, he wanted to rip off the offending boot, make it easier to move, but then he remembered the red eyes he had seen on the surface of the water just across the room, and he changed his mind. Tentatively, braced for what he knew was coming, he lowered the other foot into the water and felt it flood down into his shoe. He slid his right foot out in front of him, certain there were only three steps, but not willing to believe it until his feet confirmed the fact. That done, he fixed the beam of light on the form hunched in the alcove and pushed towards her through water which rose up to the middle of his thigh.