The Lizard's Bite

COSTA WAS STILL ON THE PHONE WHEN THEY MOORED at the San Pietro vaporetto stop. The roar of the reversing diesel sent a flock of startled pigeons rising into the perfect sky. He gave the taxi owner a hefty wad of notes, then stepped ashore, fixing his eyes on the crooked campanile ahead of him, wondering how to reach it through the warren of solitary alleyways spreading out from the waterside. Even here, on this deserted island only just attached to the main bulk of Venice, it was impossible to escape the city’s drive for power. Until two centuries before, the sprawling hulk of San Pietro had been the city’s cathedral, a symbol of the Church which the State exiled, quite deliberately, to the distant periphery to make sure no one, not priest nor congregation, was in any doubt that the spiritual must always give way to the temporal. Today, what little power the area had once possessed was entirely dissipated, blown away like pollen on the wind. Deserted save for a few pensioners enjoying the sun on the sparse green grass in front of the cathedral, it seemed an appropriate place to plan the final act of a conspiracy.

He’d called each of them as he made his way across the lagoon. Teresa Lupo, who had now given up watching Leo Falcone sleeping in the Ospedale Civile. She felt content about Falcone. He wouldn’t stir for a while. But the surgeon she’d brought in to manage his case assured them he was out of danger, not that she’d needed his opinion. On the phone, her voice difficult to hear over the noise of the taxi battling across the lagoon, she’d told Costa how she’d seen the fire in Falcone’s eyes as the sedative fought, and won, the battle to put him to sleep. There might be difficult times ahead, but Leo would return to the fray, and keep on returning until something stopped him for good.

It was a quiet, pointed rebuke about Costa’s own position, perhaps, but one he’d little time to consider at that moment.

Gianni Peroni would, he felt sure, still be furious after a brief and ill-tempered episode at the big Questura in Piazzale Roma. In desperation, and against Costa’s advice, the big cop had made one last effort to persuade some individual above the head of Commissario Grassi that the murder of Randazzo could only be investigated properly if it was seen in the light of the Bracci case and, by implication, that of the murders of Uriel and Bella Arcangelo. It had been like screaming at the deaf. Peroni hadn’t got beyond the pen pusher at the desk, who’d made one call, to a name he didn’t recognise, then told Peroni the station was too busy to waste time on someone who no longer worked there.

Luca Zecchini had pleaded the need for some time to himself. It took a while for Costa to get through to the major directly on his mobile. Zecchini was circumspect, unwilling to talk. The Carabinieri had an office not far from the Castello Questura, in the Campo San Zaccaria. It wasn’t hard to guess what Zecchini would do next. Exactly what any safe, conventional officer would in the circumstances. Call back to base, explain the situation to a superior, await orders. Prepare to share the blame. A content, well-ordered man like Zecchini surely believed that only an idiot would stick his neck on the block without good reason. The major had gone a long way already, all on the basis of a brief personal friendship with a man from a rival force. Further than Costa had expected, in all honesty. From the short conversation they had, one in which Costa struggled to persuade him to come to the meeting on San Pietro, it was difficult to gauge how much more Zecchini, or his superiors, could accept.

And then, finally, Costa had phoned Emily, left a message, since she was on voicemail, and received a brief call a little while later, during which she promised to do little more than be at the cathedral as he asked.

There was no time to wonder about the hesitation in her voice, no time for anything but to try to devise a way ahead. It was now almost five p.m. The Isola degli Arcangeli would be signed away to its new fate in little over an hour.

COSTA LOOKED AHEAD and saw a slender figure in a dark silk suit standing half hidden by the side of the crooked white marble campanile that leaned at an odd angle, set apart from the cathedral to which it belonged.

“Where have you been?” she asked bluntly.

“Chasing ghosts.”

“Did you find them?”

This wasn’t the conversation he wanted just then.

“Not exactly. It was a stupid idea, probably. I don’t think Leo would have approved.”

Emily looked at the wound on his head. Laura Conti had bandaged it. He could feel that the dried sticky blood had made its way beyond the fabric.

“You’re hurt, Nic.” Her hand went to his hair, her eyes examined the blow. “Head wounds can be nasty. You should see a doctor.”

“Later. We don’t have time.”

“Don’t we?”

He hadn’t seen her look like this before. Her eyes no longer shone. Her face had a flat, emotionless cast that made her seem older, sadder.

“And you?” he asked.

“I’ve been trying to get you what you want.”

“I know. Thanks.”

He touched her bare arm, then kissed the softness of her cheek, aware of the way she steeled against him. “I mean it. Thanks.”

“I don’t think it worked,” she murmured. “I’m sorry . . .”

There was an expression on her face, a lost, desolate look there, he didn’t begin to recognise.

“Let’s not prejudge anything,” he urged her. “We’ve more than one way to skin this particular cat.”

“Really? Are you sure he isn’t skinning us? Along with everyone else?”

“Is that how it feels?”

“To me it does. Let’s get started, shall we?” She nodded at the cathedral door. “They’re waiting for you. I want this out of my life forever after this evening. Understand this, Nic. After tonight, I’m gone from Venice.”

Her blue eyes didn’t leave him, looking for something she didn’t seem to find. “With you or without you,” she told him.

He didn’t deserve any better. Costa had been pushing all of them ever since Falcone went into hospital. By force of circumstance, she’d been close to Hugo Massiter. Costa had been blind to what that could mean. He only really began to consider the possible cost when he saw Laura Conti and Daniel Forster cowering in that little hovel on Sant’ Erasmo, still terrified of a man they hadn’t seen for years.

“Tomorrow we leave,” he said, taking Emily’s hands. “Tuscany. Anywhere. Wherever you want. I promise.”

“People in your job make a lot of promises,” she replied, and strode through the door, into the dark, lofty belly of the cathedral, empty save for a caretaker at the door and three figures seated on a wooden bench set in the shadows of the nave: Teresa, Peroni and, to Costa’s surprise, Luca Zecchini, who sat between the two of them. The major looked cheerier than at any time since the two of them had pounced on him as he sat eating a peaceful meal in Verona only a day earlier.

Costa pulled up a couple of flimsy metal chairs, positioned them opposite this unlikely trio, and introduced Emily to the major from the Carabinieri.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come, Luca. I wasn’t sure I should have asked you, to be honest.”

“Hell,” Zecchini answered with a broad grin, “Leo always said you people were good for keeping ennui away. I decided I was getting a little bored lately.”

“And your men?” Costa asked.

“They’re too young and too junior to risk being anything other than bored. I don’t mind putting my own job on the line. But I don’t extend that privilege to my officers. I imagine Leo’s the same.”

“Sure,” Peroni said, laughing. “That’s why we’re here.”

“If we can take Massiter down, he’s yours,” Costa offered. “That should take care of any unpleasantness.”

“Mine. Yours.” The major shrugged, nonchalant. “What does it matter? I’ve talked to my people, Nic. They’ve no ties here. Remember that. They’ve also got a lot of reasons to want Hugo Massiter in jail if there’s a good chance of keeping him there.”

Costa nodded. He understood that last qualification well.

“On the other hand,” Zecchini added. “If we screw up . . .”

The way his pale, intelligent face turned suddenly glum said it all.

“He’s going to be untouchable once he pushes this deal through,” the major continued. “He’ll have people in his debt well beyond Venice. They’re frightened of Massiter as it is. Once he’s tied them up in all the loans and guarantees and whatever other backhanders go along with something like this—”

“We get the picture,” Peroni interrupted.

“I’m glad you do,” Zecchini told the big cop. “This may be everyday stuff for you. For me . . .” Without thinking, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then, under Costa’s steely gaze, took one look around the gloomy cathedral interior, laughed, and put it away. “And in a church, too. So, people? What do we have? Can we charge this man with anything? Can we even put him under arrest?”

“I don’t know,” Costa said frankly. “What about the smuggling? You tell me . . .”

Zecchini scowled. “Not a chance. Not with what we have.” He smiled at Emily Deacon. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I’ve no idea how you got that material. From what I know of Massiter it was a very brave thing to do. Our computer people are taking a look at it right now. They say that, without a password, it could take months to try to decode anything. Someone would have to sign off those resources too. I really don’t see that happening. They’re looking. But . . .”

“It’s not just the computer files,” Peroni objected. “There’s Randazzo. Massiter’s relationship with him. That material in Randazzo’s house.”

“Where’s the proven link?” Zecchini demanded.

“It’s got to be there! Bring Massiter in and ask him.”

“On what grounds? I’ve no evidence that says Randazzo got his illicit goods from Massiter. We’ve nothing that proves the relationship between them was anything other than proper. Or to suggest Massiter was behind the shooting of this Bracci character . . .”

“We know,” Costa insisted.

Zecchini wasn’t going to be moved. “From what I’ve heard I don’t doubt you’re right. Otherwise why would I be here? All the same . . . In terms of hard fact, I can’t see I’ve anything to help you. If we had a couple of weeks to run up an inventory of what’s in Randazzo’s house, check it off against a known list, perhaps then we’d have something, though a direct link to Massiter could still be hard to prove. But we’re talking about lots of time and lots of manpower, and we don’t have the luxury of either. If I’m wrong, just tell me. I can’t see it any other way.”

“So that’s my contribution out the window,” Emily remarked. “Is there anything left?”

“There’s what we had to begin with,” Teresa suggested. “Bella and Uriel Arcangelo. And now this . . .”

She reached into her large black leather bag and took out the digital camera she always carried these days. On the bright screen was a photo of the monogrammed cotton shirt they’d found in Ca’ degli Arcangeli. “It’s safe in a private lab in Mestre. Silvio’s there working on it.”

“What does it tell us so far?” Costa asked.

“The blood’s Bella’s. And that piece of cloth belongs to Massiter, surely. Who we also know slept with Bella on more than one occasion on his yacht in order to get closer to her family. Incontrovertible proof, solid DNA. All the stuff you people love these days. Perhaps . . .”

She stopped, seeing the disappointment on their faces.

“What about the apron?” Peroni asked. “I thought you’d got evidence it had been messed with somehow?”

“It’s been contaminated by Tosi’s lab in Mestre. It could be weeks before we get a proper report.”

“We can’t make an arrest out of that,” Zecchini said with a grimace.

“Why not?” she demanded. “Think it through. Bella’s pregnant. She’s screaming at Massiter to own up to being the father. Perhaps she wants to ditch Uriel and move in with the Englishman. He could have set out to kill her in the house, then murdered Uriel and made it look like he was responsible. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

“In principle, no,” Costa said. What they knew of the facts seemed to support the idea. Just as importantly, it seemed to fit with what Costa understood of Hugo Massiter’s personality. Greed, sexual avarice, ruthlessness . . . and an agile facility for escaping the blame, pushing it onto others, just as he’d done with Laura Conti and Daniel Forster. “But it’s supposition. There’s not enough hard evidence.”

“What?” she screeched. “To hell with deduction, let’s rely on good old-fashioned chemistry. Bella’s blood is on Massiter’s shirt. If that’s not evidence, I don’t know what is.”

“It’s a shirt that seems to have belonged to Massiter,” Emily pointed out evenly. “Bella could have taken it herself from his yacht. We know she went there. He keeps that apartment in the palazzo too. Even though he only uses it during the day at the moment, he must have clothes there. If you stood up in court and tried to use the shirt as evidence of Massiter’s involvement, you’d get torn to shreds. With good reason. It proves nothing.”

“It’s going to prove everything!” Teresa yelled. “Just wait.”

“What do you mean?” Costa asked.

“I didn’t tell you this. I can’t fit it into the time frame you have, so it seemed irrelevant. But Silvio’s found other evidence on the shirt too. We think there’s DNA from the perpetrator. Sweat, by the looks of it.”

Emily brightened suddenly. “And it’s Massiter’s?”

Teresa didn’t look any of them in the eyes at that moment. “Things aren’t as simple as that. Blood’s really easy to extract. This is a lot harder. Even so, I’m pushing to get some results.”

“When?” Peroni demanded.

She swore quietly, then walked over into a dark corner, leaving the four of them staring at each other in silence, listening to Teresa alternately bullying and wheedling on the phone.

When she came back she looked distinctly downcast. “Even if Silvio pulls out all the stops, the soonest we could get confirmation would be around seven this evening. Chemistry’s like that. It doesn’t lend itself to shortcuts. Sorry . . .”

“Seven’s too late.” Zecchini stared at the two cops. “Massiter’s safe by then.”

“Then perhaps we just have to accept that he’s won,” Emily said with a marked reluctance. “That this is as good as we’re going to get. Leo will live. We can quietly pass this evidence to the right people at the right time. A few months down the line they could do something with it. Or hand the information on to the media and let them start working.”

“This is a job for us,” Costa said firmly. “Or the Carabinieri. No one else. And either it happens now or it doesn’t happen at all. We all know that.”

Emily smiled. “There. You see? He’s got you too. That’s the way Hugo works. It’s what makes him tick. Not the money. Not the property. It’s the fact that he has a hold over people. He owns them. More people than ever. Us too, now. And we’ll get a call one day. A little favour from him. A little something in return.”

Peroni looked baffled. “Why the hell would any of us go along with it?”

“Because he’d be offering something we wanted!” Emily insisted. “For you two, maybe a lead. For me, some work. Who knows? That’s how it begins. We mustn’t let this man get any further into our lives, Nic. If he knew we were here . . . trying to come up with some conspiracy to bring him down, and failing, do you know what he’d feel? It would make him happy. He’d feel validated. He’d know he was inside us.”

Costa caught her eye then, wished there were more you could say with a glance. Hugo Massiter was inside her life already. Costa had invited him there.

“So he signs at six,” he said. “And an hour later we get a report that puts him at the murder scene, one no one in their right mind will want to read. Teresa, there has to be a way . . .”

“No! No! No!” she screeched. “I know what you’re going to say and it’s not possible. I can’t change the laws of physics. Silvio’s stretching everything to the limit as it is.”

They sat in silence. Except from Luca Zecchini, who rocked back and forth on the bench and glowered at each of them in turn. Then, half astonished, half furious, he demanded, “So is that it?”

The rest stared at him.

“That’s it,” Costa conceded eventually. “We’ve nothing left.”

“What? Leo said something about how you never gave up,” the Carabinieri major complained. “Leo said you could always come up with something.”

“Leo’s not around, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Teresa objected bitterly.

“He told me he didn’t need to be. Maybe I should go round to that hospital room of his, wake him up and tell him how wrong he was. If there’s nothing better to do . . .”

It was Peroni who spoke next. “There are only so many times we can bang our heads against this wall, Luca.”

Nic Costa’s thoughts kept returning to the couple across the lagoon, and the promise he’d made. He remembered the terror in Laura Conti’s eyes when she believed he’d come from Massiter. Emily was right, as usual. Massiter’s power was that he stayed with those he’d touched, like a virus in the blood. Emily had been closer to Massiter than the rest of them. She’d felt that power, just as Laura Conti and Daniel Forster had. The damage it caused was deep, something to be resented and feared. But with that fear came a need for resolution too. This was the dilemma Laura and the Englishman faced, and had yet to conquer.

Running didn’t work. It hadn’t for Laura Conti and Daniel Forster. It wouldn’t for Emily either. What he’d unwittingly made her do already threatened to destroy the remains of their relationship. He’d seen the dead look in her face outside the cathedral, understood instinctively what it probably meant. She was an ex-FBI agent. When it came to getting the job done, nothing, not personal pride, not self-respect, would have stood in the way, and he should have known that all along.

Costa thought of that great glass hall where a stray bullet had changed all their lives, sent Leo Falcone spinning towards a brush with death, despatched the rest of them on a quest for justice that came at a cost he should have understood from the start.

The palazzo scared him a little. It was too full of memories. Emily in her lovely angel’s guise, with the scarlet wound of the peperoncini on her feathered wing, falling under Hugo Massiter’s sway. That lost moment at which the two of them could have escaped everything. And Leo Falcone stricken on the ground, blood seeping from his mouth as Teresa fought to staunch the flow.

He looked the Carabinieri major in the eye, liked the sudden flash of interest he found there. “We only need an hour, for God’s sake. Surely we can stall him for that?”

“You’d think . . .” Zecchini replied. “But how?”

Nic Costa smiled at the man in the dark suit. “We don’t need to arrest Massiter. We just have to keep him away from signing that contract until Silvio gets some results. Then you’ve got a prima facie case for taking him into custody on the spot.”

“But how?” Teresa wanted to know.

He didn’t like the idea. He didn’t enjoy breaking his word. There had been a time when Nic Costa would never have countenanced what he was considering next, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised he had no choice.

“By giving Hugo Massiter something he wants even more than the Isola degli Arcangeli.”