She made a noncommittal noise. “We both want the same thing, Daniel. To find whoever murdered your friends. I’ve some ideas in that regard, but no evidence. I could arraign you, of course, and try to force you to assist.”
“As you see fit,” he replied dryly. “Scacchi had little regard for the police. I should tell you that.”
“He had good reason to wish to avoid us from time to time. What else would you expect?”
He shook his head, unconvinced. “It wasn’t that. Scacchi was ambivalent about moral matters. That made it impossible for him to deal with anyone of a similar mind, and I imagine you must by definition fall into that category. The law isn’t black and white here, is it?”
“Some of us try to make it that way,” she insisted.
“Perhaps. But you do Scacchi a disservice if you think he disliked the police simply out of self-interest. You served him no purpose. Since he was unable to define his own position, he relied upon the certainties of others to define it for him. That was why he liked me, I believe. Why he adopted me, almost. What he took to be my steadfastness, my relentless sincerity, allowed him a pillar he could lean on, depend upon. For a while, anyway.”
He could not stop looking at the painting. She was unable to see the emotion in his eyes.
“And he was wrong,” Daniel added firmly. “Utterly wrong. Which is why we are here.”
“We should talk about this,” she said. “At length.”
“No,” he insisted. “Like him, I have nothing to gain from you.”
“So you’ve found the woman? The housekeeper?”
She had his attention then. The two figures on the canvas were entirely forgotten.
“Come, Daniel,” she continued. “She’s not returned to Ca’ Scacchi.
You’ve no idea where she is. You need to speak to her. You need to understand why she has abandoned you.”
“That’s a personal matter,” he replied coldly. “None of your damn business.”
“I wouldn’t argue with that. Yet we can help each other here. In return for your assistance, I can point you to where she may be found.”
He stared the length of the hall, seeming to weigh her offer. “Tell me now and I’ll help you.”
“No! Do I look a fool?”
“So much for trust!”
“Oh, Daniel. Don’t work so hard at being exasperating. You’re a young man in love. It’s written all over your face. If I tell you what I know, everything else will be forgotten. My case. This concert of yours that has the whole city on the edge of their seats. Everything. Both of us might lose more than you think. Have you thought of that? She confessed , Daniel. There was a reason.”
He turned away from her and stared at the opposite wall. “She lost her head. She was mad with grief.”
Did he really believe that? She held it out as a possibility, too, much as the idea grated. “Perhaps. Neither of us knows.”
His eyes went dead. “Then you haven’t a clue where she is, or surely you would have dragged this from her. Please. No more. I’m tired of these games.”
Giulia Morelli reached into her bag and pulled out the photographs she had retrieved that morning from the files and the morgue.
“This isn’t,” she insisted, “some ‘game.’ There are three men dead now, not two. And one more, sometime before you came here, who was connected to this case, too, I believe. There’s no reason to think they will be the last. The Venetian Lucifer isn’t just some paint on canvas. He’s real. He’s here. He’s around us now. He breathes in our ears, he laughs in our faces. You see this man?”
She passed him the photograph of Rizzo from the files. It was two years old, taken the last time he had been pulled in for some minor theft on the Lido. Daniel looked at it with no perceptible interest. Giulia wasn’t fooled. He knew this face.
“Just some little crook who, from time to time, wound his way between the legs of this demon of ours,” she said, not expecting a reaction.
She handed him the second picture, taken on the pathologist’s slab the previous day. There was a black, bloody hole in Rizzo’s temple. His dead eyes stared at the camera.
“That’s what he looks like now,” she said, watching Daniel’s face.
Daniel Forster went white. She wondered if he might throw up.
“You can deal with the devil who did this. Or you can deal with me and, when it’s over, try to make your peace with Laura. If you’re still alive.”
He didn’t flinch. His eyes were back on the wall again.
Angry in spite of herself, she took hold of his chin in her hand and forced him away from the painting, forced him to look in her eyes.
“I’ve no more patience for this, Daniel. I’ve no more time. Choose now, please. And choose wisely.”
52
Striking a bargain
Daniel sat in Hugo Massiter’s apartment, watching his multiple reflections in the glass. It was eight in the morning. An hour later they would both walk into the press conference Daniel had demanded. At noon they would attend Scacchi’s funeral. The concert was at eight, with a party afterwards.
The previous evening Daniel had caught one of the late-night stores in Castello and, with money found in one of Paul’s jackets, bought an expensive suit in dark-blue linen, with a matching white shirt and a black silk tie. His hair was now cut in a neat, tight business crop. Massiter raised a single eyebrow.
“You look too commercial, Daniel,” he objected. “Like a broker. Not a composer.”
“I’m sorry. I’m new to this sort of thing.”
“Next time I’ll come with you and offer a little advice. If you’re finally to start thinking about what you wear, a little experience will not go amiss. Please…”
Daniel looked at Massiter’s pale-blue suit and pink shirt, thought about the impending funeral, and wondered whether to say something. Then, before he could speak, he was waved to the sofa.
“Well,” Massiter said. “Thank you for coming here first. I can’t pretend I’m not concerned, Daniel. What’s this about? Why the change of mood? What, exactly, do you intend to say?”
“Whatever you want me to say, Hugo. I thought that was the point.”
Massiter shook his head. “I don’t understand. You’ve been like a recluse ever since poor Scacchi died. Now, out of the blue, you seem suddenly recovered and can’t wait to talk to the press. I’m glad of the former, naturally, but as your principal supporter in this venture, I think I’ve the right to know what you intend to say.”
“Everything but the truth,” Daniel replied. “Isn’t that what you want to hear?”
Massiter looked at him intently. “Amy seems to think you’re troubled, Daniel. She already suspects you’re not the author of this piece and thinks you’re about to tell that to the world to salve some misplaced outbreak of conscience. Is that the case? Because if it is, I have to tell you we would both suffer from the consequences. You’re still due the balance of the arrangement I reached with Scacchi. Fifty thousand dollars. No small sum, as you appreciate, since you negotiated it. More than that, there is, I must repeat, the question of fraud. You’ve been party to a conspiracy. If you wish to turn awkward on me now, we’ll both find ourselves on the wrong end of a criminal investigation. Do you want to go to jail?”
“Of course not,” Daniel replied immediately. “Nor would I want that for you, Hugo. You’ve been kind to me. You were kind to Scacchi too.”
“It was business,” Massiter insisted. “Make no mistake about that. But pleasant business. I hope you’ve enjoyed my company as much as I have yours. I hope, too, that you have picked up a little from me. I have much to teach, Daniel. You, to be blunt, have much to learn.”
Daniel nodded. “I know. But I’m making progress, aren’t I?”