One of the blockers seems to have gone. I remember the first blocker I’d Tasered, the young man who was smoking and fell into the small canal at the side of the palace. He isn’t there any more. And some of the others are starting to move, quitting the Chirezzia and streaming in this direction, heading for the Rialto, others clustering in what must be a launch-
“Jesus! Hey! Watch where you’re going! What the – I mean, Jesus.”
“Scusi, sorry, sorry, signore, I beg your pardon,” I tell the backpacker I’ve just knocked to his knees, helping him back up to a surrounding chorus of tutting.
“Well, just-”
“Scusi!” Then I’m off again, sliding and dancing through the crowd like the people are flags on a slalom course, leading with one shoulder then the other, sliding and swivelling on the balls of my feet. The boat with the half-dozen or so Concern people in it is on its way down the Grand Canal. More – maybe a dozen – are on foot, heading over the Rialto now. I’m just a couple of minutes away from there. If they turn left on its far side, they’ll pass right by me or we’ll bump into each other.
My phone goes. It’s Ade. A symbol on the display that wasn’t flashing before is flashing now. I suspect the battery is about to give out.
“Fred?”
“Hello, Adrian.”
“Just landed at the Rialto, mate, just past the vaporetto sort of floating bus stop wotsit. On the bridge in one minute.”
“I’ll see you very shortly.”
I stop, walking into the doorway of a glove shop, breathing hard. I still can’t flit across to another person. I can feel the squad of Concern people splitting up, most heading on down the main route for San Marco, three coming this way. I turn to face the calle and close down as much as I can, calming myself, attempting, if it’s possible, to take all that I can of my new abilities off-line. A minute or two passes, the street teems with people. I recognise somebody and my heart leaps, then I realise they’re heading the other way and it’s just the backpacker I bowled into earlier. I try a quick toe-in reading with my sense of where the Concern people are. All three of the nearest are still heading up the way I’ve just come.
I walk out and on and turn a corner, find myself facing the eastern end of the Rialto.
“Cripes! Heads up, mateys! Here’s our boy! Whoop whoop! Last one in’s a scallop! I say, that ain’t politic. I ain’t even broke my fast yet, dontcha know?”
“What? Where?” Madame d’Ortolan said. She glared at Mrs Siankung. “Is this something new?”
Mrs Siankung stared into Bisquitine’s eyes, letting one of the other handlers take over the job of towelling her hair dry. “I think so,” she said. They were in one of the main bedroom suites of the palace. Mr Kleist and Professore Loscelles looked on, as did Bisquitine’s handlers and a spotter in a schoolboy’s uniform who was keeping in continual touch with the intervention teams heading for the San Marco and the smaller groups checking out the other places that Bisquitine had already mentioned. Bisquitine sat on the bed in a white towelling robe like the one the unfortunate young blocker had been wearing. “This is the bad man?” Mrs Siankung asked her gently.
Bisquitine nodded. “Dish it all, Chaplip, I’m hungry! I mean, jeepahs!”
Mrs Siankung took one of the girl’s hands in both of hers, stroking it as though it was a pet. “We shall eat, my love. Very soon. You get dressed now and we go to eat, yes? Where is the bad man?”
“Sausinges would be nice. I says it like that cos it’s cute. Where’s my old ma, then? I ain’t seen her round the blinkin farmstead in mumfs.”
“The bad man, my love.”
“He’s here, love-a-kins,” Bisquitine said, putting her face very close to Mrs Siankung’s. “Shalls we to go see da bad mun?” she said, deep-voiced, as though talking to a baby. She shook her head. “Shalls we? Shalls we to go and see the bad mun? Shalls we? Shalls we?”
“Yes,” Mrs Siankung said quietly, at the same time as Madame d’Ortolan shouted, “Enough of this!”
Bisquitine seemed to ignore them both. She stuck one finger sharply up into the air, narrowly missing the eye of the handler towelling her hair. “To the Rialto, me hearties! Realty bound! Tally fucking prostimitute!”
Madame d’Ortolan looked at Professore Loscelles. “The Rialto. That’s close, isn’t it?”
“Five minutes away,” he told her.
Mrs Siankung patted Bisquitine’s hand. “We’ll get you dressed,” she started to say.
“No, we won’t,” Madame d’Ortolan said, standing. “Bring her as she is. It’s warm out.” She looked sourly round them all. Only Professore Loscelles appeared like himself or well enough turned out to be presentable. “We can’t look any more ridiculous than we do already.”
It looks like all humanity is packing the Rialto; the bridge over the Grand Canal is compact but massive, sturdy yet elegant. Two lines of small packed shops are separated by the broad central way whose surface is composed of flights of shallow grey-surfaced steps edged with the same cream-coloured marble found throughout the city. Behind the shops two further walkways face up and down the canal, linked to the pitched street of the central thoroughfare at either end and the centre. The walkway facing south-west is the busier as it provides a longer, more open view down the Canal and the bustle of boats plying its milky blue-green waters.
They’ve left the Palazzo Chirezzia. The thing, the person, the nexus of sheer terrifying weirdness is on the move, and so is practically everybody else who was still there, including Madame herself and the Prof. They’re a minute away; they can probably see the bridge by now.
My mobile phone goes and I start to answer it, seeing that it’s Adrian. The display blinks off. The phone won’t come back to life. I shove it in a pocket and start up the slope of the Rialto with the rest of the tourist crowd.
“When, sir? Why, sir. I’ll tell you when, then; between the Quilth of Octoldyou-so and the Nonce of Distember, THAT’S JOLLY WELL WHEN!” Bisquitine’s shout echoed off the surrounding buildings.
“Hush, my dear,” Mrs Siankung said, conscious of the stares they were attracting.
They were on the Ruga Orefici, within sight of the Rialto. Bisquitine padded happily along in the midst of their motley collection of ungainly bodies and unfortunate clothing styles. She wore the same towelling robe she’d been wrapped in after her shower and had been persuaded into a pair of panties but had adamantly refused shoes or even slippers. She hugged the gown about her, looked round at the various shops with their excitingly bright displays and tried unsuccessfully to whistle.
The smell of a bakery distracted her as the square in front of San Giacomo di Rialto opened out to their left.
“Still hungry!” she cried out.
“I know, dear,” Mrs Siankung said, trying to keep an arm round the girl’s waist. “We’ll eat soon.”
“Wot you lookin at then, squire?” Bisquitine said in a deep voice as two bronze-skinned teenage girls passed by, staring and then laughing at her. “Pop a crap on yo petal, bitches, upside ya head. An no mitsake, mistake, mystique, Mustique. I meant that.”
“Shush now, dear.”
“Claudia?” a man said suddenly, stepping right in front of Bisquitine. She had to stop, as did the others. The man was tall. He wore sunglasses, had salt-and-pepper hair, wore a suit and carried a briefcase. He took the sunglasses off, frowned, eyes screwing up as he stared into Bisquitine’s eyes.
“ Ill met by sunlight, my good fellow,” Bisquitine said haughtily. “Why, I’ve half a mind to scratch the boundah!”