CHAPTER 22
Present Day Isola Mario, Venice The killer of Monica Vidic continues to watch the monitors long after Antonio is out of view. He pans the surveillance cameras left and right, then tilts and zooms in and out.
There's no further trace of the snooper.
It isn't that unusual for one of the security team to wander off their perimeter and stray into the boathouse's fifty-yard no-go zone. But this is different. The young guard hasn't appeared out of idle curiosity. No, not at all. He has something else focused on his mind.
Intrusion.
He's clearly come with the notion of breaking in.
The killer replays the tapes and smiles. Yes, indeed. The foolish boy had certainly been thinking of climbing the fence – he'd like to have seen him try – and perhaps even contemplated swimming his way to the boathouse door.
Now why would a guard do that?
And more importantly, what should be done with a guard who would want to do that?
The killer had made plans for the night. Big plans. But now they're going to have to be postponed.
On another bank of monitors – ones slaved to the security master system – he watches Antonio and Fernando say goodnight to each other, punch knuckles and go their different ways. How nice to see colleagues getting on. He switches to another covert video feed, provided by cameras hidden inside the ugly white wall domes that most people mistakenly believe are just lights. The night watchman returns to the changing hut and hunts in his locker for the stale panini and soggy torte his wife had packed for him half a day ago. The snooper dawdles down to the decked pontoon and un-ropes an old motor boat.
A very old boat, by the look of it. The killer can see its registration numbers on the side and quickly writes them down. Its name, Spirito di Vita – Spirit of Life – has been removed, but the letters have been there for so long they've left legible outlines on the craft.
On a laptop on a steel table beside the security system, he opens a file marked Personnel. A few clicks later he's reading all about Antonio Materazzi – no doubt a false name – and where he's supposed to live and his employment history.
The references and background checks look good. But he still has a bad feeling about the young guard. A very bad feeling.
Within the hour his suspicions are confirmed. The boat's number and the name Spirito di Vita don't tally. The registration tracks back to someone called Materazzi, but the Spirito has a very different history and entirely different numbers. It started life as a plaything for a businessman called Francesco di Esposito from Naples. It was then bought by a former hospital worker called Angelo Pavarotti and now apparently belongs to his son, Antonio. Antonio Materazzi is almost certainly Antonio Pavarotti. Most likely an undercover cop – a special unit of the Polizia or Carabinieri. Operatives often keep their real first names in case some local calls to them in the street; that way they can pass off the recognition without arousing suspicion.
Monica's killer shuts down the laptop and returns to the safety of the commune. A smile comes to his face. How ironic that Antonio's father, Angelo – a name meaning messenger of God – should be the one to provide him with the information on how to kill his son.
CAPITOLO XVIII
666 BC
Teucer and Tetia's Hut, Atmanta Sunrise over the Adriatic. A sky of strawberry and vanilla reflects in the rolling mirrored ocean. A soft breeze catches Tetia and blows back her long black hair.
The piece is fired and finished.
Tetia reflects on the work and the duplicity involved in completing it. Last night Teucer had been moved back to their hut to finish his recovery. She'd dutifully tended him until he'd fallen asleep. Then she'd returned to the clay, carefully baking it in a new kiln pit she'd dug in the earth, filled with dried manure, chopped wood, sea salt and dried leaves. As the blaze had grown stronger she'd covered it with logs and clay offcuts to trap the intense heat, timing everything so she would remove the ceramic at the first glimpse of dawn.
It was a relief to find it hadn't cracked. Though, when she looked closely, she could see hundreds of fissures, like the snakes she'd etched, crawling conspiratorially across the surface. The clay had not been pure. Poisonous deposits and odd minerals had seeped into it. At one point she'd been convinced the poisons would break the clay during the firing. But they hadn't. And, looking at it now, it is indeed everything Magistrate Pesna said it would be.
Magnificent.
The greatest of all her works.
And she is loath to give it away.
Tetia takes time to gently clean it. She stores it at the back of the hut and feels a strange sensation in her stomach.
A bubbling.
Like hunger. Only different.
She puts her hands across the bulge. Unless she's mistaken, even her child seems pleased that she's finished.
She covers the tablet with cloth and starts to chop fruit for breakfast. It makes her remember how usually when someone is ill neighbours bring small gifts as gestures of goodwill to speed a full and fast recovery. Fruits, cheeses, juices, or even talismans. But none have been brought for Teucer. No one has even visited.
Sharp shafts of sunlight begin to flood the hut and come to rest on Teucer's face.
Eventually the warmth wakes him.
He drags himself upright and instantly reaches out for his wife. 'Tetia!' There's a hint of panic in his voice.
'I'm here.' She goes to him and strokes his matted hair. 'Are you feeling better? You have slept long and deeply. Had you not been making the grunts of a bear, then I may have taken you for dead.'
He smiles and puts his hands to his head, close to where she's been touching him. 'I do feel a little stronger.' The bandages are all loose and the poultice has fallen off. 'Though my eyes feel as though they are full of sand.'
Tetia can see that his dressing has slipped, his pupils are uncovered. He's looking straight at her.
But he can't see anything!
She steps closer. Looks for a flicker of recognition.
Nothing.
Teucer senses something. Perhaps it is her silence. Perhaps he somehow picks up her thoughts. 'What are you doing?'
She swallows hard. 'Nothing, my love. I had mislaid your things. Lie back down and I will change those dressings for you.'
Teucer lowers his elbows and lies back.
Tetia pours water into a bowl and uses ram's wool to gently wipe away crusts from his eye lashes and sockets. She sits astride his thighs, and for a moment both of them think back to when they last made love like this. He smiles up at her and she feels him harden beneath her. He reaches out so his fingers touch the falling curtains of her hair. 'Thank you, my sweetness. Thank you for being here with me and for not deserting me. I thought the other day that you had decided that if the gods had abandoned me, then so should you.'
'Shush!' She puts a finger to his lips. 'Don't say such things.'
Teucer falls silent, his fingers frozen like icicles in the soft waterfall of hair.
She bends her face low to kiss his dry lips. She moistens them with her tongue and feels a soft moan stirring within him.
Gently she removes her clothes and kisses his chest and penis. She'll make love to him. Slowly. Caringly. Then she'll tell him. Tell him she has to go to Pesna.
CHAPTER 23
Present Day Hotel Rotoletti, Piazzale Roma, Venice Lieutenant Valentina Morassi picks Tom up at his own hotel a little after 8 a.m. She'd left a message there the previous night, and also at the Luna Baglioni.
The weather's cooler than it's been for some time, and Valentina is dressed in brushed-cotton, black Armani jeans, a short jacket of soft red Italian leather and a grey cashmere jumper over a long-collared white blouse. She has a weakness for clothes. More of her money goes on them than on food, which she thinks is probably a good thing, given that if it was the other way round she'd never fit into any of the stuff she likes to wear. It follows, then, that when Tom appears she instantly notices he's still wearing the same jeans, grey tee and grey hooded sweat-top that she first saw him in.