All these possibilities ran through my head. And then were dashed by the ferryman’s grim news. He stared at my appearance, drenched, dishevelled, like a beggar, and muttered, “Rome coach is late. Won’t see no one from that till midday at the earliest. Lost a wheel outside Bologna, so they say, and went right off the road.”
I must have looked a sorry sight. When I asked him for some paper and a piece of charcoal so I might write a message for a friend, he walked into the nearest tavern and came back with both.
“What kind of simpleton are you, lad?” he demanded. “Asking a sailor for something to write with.”
I thanked him, then, penniless and starving, joined the other destitutes picking scraps from the remains of the Cannaregio market around the corner: a mouldy piece of bread, a half-devoured apple. I stole some oranges from a cart, and dashed into the darkness when the trader saw me. In an alley near the ghetto, I devoured what little food I had. Under the light of an illuminated alcove Virgin, I tore the paper into pieces and wrote — in a different hand, I hoped — a similar message on each. Then, exhausted and half-sleeping, I walked the city, into San Marco and beyond, finding each of those bronze lions’ mouths I could remember and making a small offering which might, I hoped, give the Doge’s men pause for thought when they read it, and provide us with a chink in the English armour.
The last I posted in the figure close to the palace itself, then, to remind myself of the stakes in this game, I walked close to the dungeon by the Bridge of Sighs, and heard the wails and plaints that drifted out of those high windows with their iron bars. In a dank doorway nearby, I spent the night, sleeping, dreaming. A dreadful dream, too, for in it I saw from behind the silken figure of Delapole stalking the slumbering Rebecca in a half-lit bedroom full of mirrors. He crept upon her stealthily, like some common criminal. Then, brutally, while she fought beneath him like a tiger, he took her by force, screaming like an animal all the while.
When this deed was done and he hung over her still, the saliva dripping from his mouth onto her white neck, he lifted his face and stared into the mirror. There I saw myself, in Delapole’s guise. I was the true perpetrator of this act in concert with this devil, who stood behind us both, having watched approvingly, and now applauded with foppish claps of his hands, as if it were some performance on the stage.
I woke with a start, these frightful images still in my head. With them came some lines I recalled from that English play I had once, in my innocence, thought the likes of Gobbo might have read.
The sun had barely risen. I trembled, still damp from my night adventures, although behind those shivers lay something deeper. In my dream I had, I felt, seen some glimpse into Delapole’s true identity. What was he in his own eyes? For want of a better word, the Devil. What did he seek? To hold others’ lives in his grasp, to do with and dispose of as he wished. What Delapole coveted, above all else, was title to that piece of a man or woman they thought their own. Beside this, lust and greed and deceit were but everyday sins, practised by the many. In his own mind Delapole wore these trophies as the primitives of Guinea sport the heads of the defeated upon their belts. The more the merrier. Rebecca was not the first; she would not be the last. His thirst was unquenchable.
I shook this miserable thought from my head and, looking every inch the ragged beggar, stumbled to the waterfront, not a hundred yards from La Pietà, thinking of my next move. The makings of a great day were already obvious. Hawkers were arguing over their pitches. The familiar scaffold which Canaletto used was being erected on the Arsenale side of the promenade, with the painter himself barking orders at the hapless workmen doing the job. Several completed canvases were being readied for show to attract commissions, among them, as I recognised from a distance, that work I had seen him begin when I was a boy, some months earlier. At first I dared not look at it too closely, for fear of all the memories it might provoke.
A soldier hammered a notice into one of the tree trunks used to tie up gondolas by the water’s edge. I waited until he had finished, then, to satisfy my curiosity — though in truth I knew what to expect all along — I wandered over and read the poster. It was a call for the arrest of one Lorenzo Scacchi, an apprentice of San Cassian, who had murdered his master most foully the previous evening. A description of the scoundrel followed, one that none seeing me then would begin to recognise. And there was the promise of a reward, from the city’s newfound English benefactor. If he could not take my head himself, Delapole would pay the Republic to do the job for him.
I damned him, damned Venice, too, and, in spite of my fears, walked over to see Mr. Canaletto’s canvas, taking care to observe that the artist himself was busy roasting a carpenter on the other side of his scaffold. The painting was magnificent, yet cold. Between this frozen moment in time and my present state lay entire chapters of sweetness and misery. All the artist offered was an exquisite testament to spectacle and grandeur. I glanced at the work a final time, then slunk back into the shadows to dream of our escape.
56
An unexpected bargain
Daniel closed his eyes and swayed uncertainly in the heat, his head full of the smell of cypress and the chemical odour of the lagoon. They had travelled with the coffin in the funeral gondola, standing in the stern, stiff and awkward. To begin with, he was aware that he wished it were Laura by his side in the black, gleaming vessel. Then, as they crossed the narrow stretch of lagoon that separated San Michele from the city, Amy took his arm and squeezed it gently. Daniel responded in the same way and was immensely grateful for her presence. He did not wish to be alone, and there was business to be done.
As they docked, he stared at the white Istrian stone of the quayside church, almost blinded by its brightness in the fierce midday sun. Behind them Venice went about its business. Vaporetti darted in and out of the jetties in a constant stream, a ceaseless movement of life around the perimeter of the city. Ahead lay the red brick outline of Murano, with its dusty furnaces turning out ornamental glass for the tourists. Scacchi must have made this journey many times, burying friends and relatives in the cemetery, where they would rest for a decade, after which their remains were forced to seek some other sanctuary. It was a curious end for a human life, Daniel thought, but one on which Scacchi’s will had insisted. It was the Venetian in the old man; he could countenance no other fate.
They left the gondola and followed the coffin, walking slowly in pace with the pallbearers. There was a small group of people waiting on the quayside. Massiter stood alone and had changed into a black suit. Daniel recognised the woman who had handled the admissions at La Pietà and a local shopkeeper who made deliveries to Laura from time to time. And Giulia Morelli, in a black trouser suit, impassive behind thick plastic sunglasses. He should have known the police would attend. Finally, there was a huge figure in a shiny blue suit. Daniel blinked, fighting the light in order to see this man properly, then realised what was missing: a small black dog by his side.
Piero came forward, vast arms encircling him, tears in his eyes. “Boy, boy,” he sobbed. “Such an occasion.”
The big man looked at Amy, unwrapped himself from Daniel, then pumped her right hand with both of his. “And our American friend, too, Miss Amy. We had such laughter. Then this?”
She kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’m so sorry.”