“You must go to the police!” Daniel demanded. “Talk to that woman who was here. Immediately!”
The old man shrugged his frail shoulders. “Oh, Daniel. Your innocence is quite overwhelming sometimes. This is Italy. The police would surely investigate. For as long as they could bear interviewing corpses. I believe that policewoman you saw is honest. But she will tell someone who is not. The men we speak of are as close to many in the police as their own family. To complain to the authorities about them…we wouldn’t live beyond a week, even if they put us in a cell.”
“We’ve tried every option,” Paul said. “Believe me.”
“Then what?”
“We seek,” Scacchi said slowly, “a creative solution.”
“You mean the money from the concerto?”
“No! This is insufficient. But the money from the concerto could be our seed. And from it we grow the crop we require.”
“So quickly?” Daniel wondered.
“Oh, yes,” Scacchi said. “I am an art dealer by trade. I have my connections. There is an object on the market in the hands of a fool who does not know its value. Massiter has discovered as much too. You heard him talk of this Guarneri? The Giuseppe del Gesù? The selfsame instrument. Unlike Massiter, I know where it is and how much I may pay for it. Between that and its true price lies the solution to our difficulties. With your assistance, I believe it may be ours to sell on to the very highest bidder.”
“You’re ill,” Daniel told the two men. “But you can walk. You can do business. You can think as quickly as any men.”
“This is true,” Scacchi agreed.
“And this Guarneri,” he went on. “It is, I assume, stolen. Otherwise the ‘fool’ who has it would surely know its true value?”
Scacchi hesitated before answering. “Yes. Let us say it’s stolen.”
“And this policewoman came here because she suspected you may seek it?”
Scacchi grimaced. “I will be honest with you. She knows there is an object on the market, though not what it is. Who are we to argue with the police?”
“And this is why you asked me here in the first place? Not just for your library? You have known about this violin for some time and sought me out as your route to it.”
Scacchi thought carefully. “Nothing is quite that concrete. If I’m honest with you, it was at the back of my mind, should the need arise. Yes. Do you agree, Paul?”
The American smiled. Both of them were, Daniel thought, grateful for this conversation, glad to end the pretence. “Of course I agree, Scacchi. Look, we’re sorry, Daniel. We thought we were getting some dumb college kid who’d help us sell some junk from the cellar, then, if we got lucky, run a couple of quiet errands to this guy with the fiddle. We didn’t realise you were going to turn out to be so likeable. Or smart.”
“Or,” Scacchi added, “become a part of us so quickly and so surely.”
“Hey,” Paul said. “We make lousy villains. We’re as sorry, as miserable, and as guilty as hell, and I’ll be damned if I am going to make that confession more than once.”
Daniel laughed and allowed Paul to pour him a small shot of whisky.
“And we still need you,” Paul added. “We could try to do this ourselves. If it’s an up day, maybe it would work. But…” He gestured at the two of them. “You can see for yourself.”
Scacchi leaned forward, peering into Daniel’s eyes. “This is a young man’s game, a fit man’s game. A meeting here. Something to carry there. The risk is minimal, and we’ll take it whenever we can. But if I can’t get your name on the cover of that music, if I can’t rely on you to meet this fellow with the Guarneri and see the instrument to ensure he’s not trying to gull us, we’re lost, Daniel. I will pay for your contribution. Come up with a price.”
They waited in silence.
“Think about it,” Scacchi said. “But not for too long. Massiter wants an answer.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Good. You know I tried to tell you, Daniel. I showed you that handsome Lucifer of mine. Don’t you think a part of him lives inside me?”
“No, Scacchi, I don’t, to be honest.”
“As you see fit. But in any case, remember what I said. When the Devil makes you an offer, there are but three options. To do what he asks. To do what ‘goodness’ demands. Or the third way. To do what the hell you like.”
“I recall.” Daniel looked at his watch. It was just past ten. The decision was, in truth, no decision at all. To refuse would be to abandon them, and Daniel Forster had been abandoned once before, in his cot, by a father he never knew. From the time he first understood the nature of this act, he had come to believe that there were few greater sins one human could inflict upon another. There was a personal reward in the game too. The dull world of Oxford seemed a million miles distant. He felt, for the first time in his life, that he was shaping the world about him, not watching it slowly fall apart. “I shall require a computer and some composition software. I am not transcribing every last note by hand.”
Scacchi looked excitedly at Paul. “Well?”
“I know someone at the university,” Paul said. “We can fix it.”
“Good,” Daniel continued. “This depends, of course, on your meeting my price.”
They shuffled awkwardly on their seats. “And that is?” asked Scacchi.
“No more secrets. No more deception. You’ll be honest with me, always, or I’ll consider everything between us forfeit, including our friendship. And you’ll find some way of making Laura happy again, for all our sakes.”
Scacchi leaned forward across the table and clutched his hand, his face split by the rictus of a happy grin. “Always. And as for Laura, nothing will give me more pleasure. We are Venetian, Daniel. We are used to these little explosions from time to time.”
“Always,” Paul repeated. “I’ll call about that computer now.”
The American headed for the study. Scacchi stayed at the table, pensive, perhaps a little guilty.
“Thank you,” he said. “For all of us. Particularly my innocent Laura.”
“This changes how I feel about you, Scacchi,” Daniel said.
“I can understand that. You feel let down. Deceived. With good reason.”
“With very good reason.”
“But,” Scacchi added, “as Paul said, you are, in part, to blame. Had you been the gullible lad we thought we’d found, none of this heartache need have occurred. You would have flitted in and out of Venice none the wiser.”
“And you would have failed, Scacchi. The opportunity for this bargain with Massiter wouldn’t have arisen. I think you are, in truth, not very good at this.”
The old man nodded, accepting the point pleasantly. “Agreed. While you appear to be developing a formidable and quite shocking talent for such intrigues.”
They both laughed. The storm was over. “Ah, and now for more important matters,” Scacchi said. “On Sunday Piero fetches us all for a picnic on Sant’ Erasmo. You’ll be the honoured guest of Ca’ Scacchi’s trio of misfits. Bring this American girl too. We should all like to meet her.”
“Amy?” The idea was not appealing. “I don’t think so. I scarcely know her.”
“All the more reason for her to come.”
“I don’t even know if I like her.”
Scacchi gave him a stern gaze. “Daniel. Take this advice, please. You need broader company than this household can provide. Let’s not suffocate each other in this place. It is the job of the old to devour the young whenever they have the opportunity. You must do your best to avoid our toothless jaws.”
Daniel thought of Amy Hartston, sitting in her elegant dress on the Sophia, with Xerxes at the tiller, Piero spouting nonsense, Scacchi and Paul in each other’s arms, and Laura dispensing spritz while hissing, “’Ave a nice day.”