The Mozart Conspiracy

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Glass couldn’t run that fast. His injuries from Vienna were still too fresh to have healed and the pain in his shoulder was grinding.

The backstreets of Venice were dark and deserted. The fog was coming down, settling heavily over the city. That was good. The fog would help him to slip away. He’d wait a while, hole up somewhere and try to heal, become strong again. He wanted Ben Hope to hurt during that time. Then he was going to come back and finish him. Do it right, slowly and properly. The way he would have, if that stupid old bastard Kroll hadn’t stopped him.

The water slopped against the side of the canal. He limped on. Through the drifting mist he saw the arched bridge across the water. There were some steps leading down. He hobbled down them. They were slippery. Down near the waterline, the old pitted stone walls were slimy with green-black mossy scum.

The little boat was moored down there, rocking gently in the shadow. He climbed into it and fired up the outboard motor. The boat burbled into life. Glass gripped the tiller and cast off. He turned the boat around, leaving a churning white wake in the darkness. A few hundred yards up the narrow canal he would pass Piazza San Marco and then he’d be heading for the open water of the Grand Canal.

After that, he could disappear. Five minutes-and he would be gone.

The dying echo of the outboard reached Ben’s ears. He got to the arched bridge. His heart was pounding and his sides were aching. He saw the ghost of the wake in the water, already breaking up, the foam dissipating against the scummy, streaked edges of the canal.

He ran on. He could only see one thing. He was sharp and focused. It would be different later, when the pain and the grief would hit him. There’d be a lot of pain. But there was no room in his mind for that now.

Glass had to be in the boat. There was nowhere else to run. If he got out of the narrow canals and into the broad waters, he could vanish all over again.

A light cut through the fog. The purr of a powerful twin-prop motor. A fibreglass hull bumped gently on rubber buffers against the canal wall. Ben walked that way.

The guy was in his late twenties or early thirties. He was well-dressed, well-groomed. He looked like someone who drove a fast boat, took a pride in it, took good care of it. He stiffened when he saw Ben approach out of the fog. ‘I need your boat,’ Ben said in Italian. ‘I’ll bring it back when I’m done.’

The guy didn’t argue. Thirty seconds later the speedboat kicked up a foaming wake and Ben powered hard down the dark canal.

He reached the mouth of the canal. Glass was nowhere. Through the fog the lights blinked and reflected like stars on the wide, dark expanse ahead of him. Hundreds of boats out there, all going their own ways. Even on a cold winter’s night, Venice was a busy marine thoroughfare.

He motored out into the open water. A bank of fog drifted in and suddenly he couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead. The water was black and the icy fog stung his skin. The boat drifted.

Glass was nowhere.

From the darkness he heard the revs of an outboard and the whoosh of bows slicing water. He was dazzled by a bright light and put his hands up to shield his eyes.

The crash almost knocked him out of the boat.

Glass slammed across his bows. Fibreglass splintered under the impact as the prow of Glass’s boat sliced through. The crippled boats fused together, lying transverse. Engine revs soared as Glass’s propeller rose out of the water.

Then Glass hurled himself at Ben, attacking like a wild animal. A slamming punch threw Ben down in the boat, winded. Glass towered above him.

The two locked boats were tacking in a tight circle. White foam churned. The airborne engine screamed. Water gushed in through the shattered bows of the speedboat. In three seconds it was closing over Ben’s chest as he lay on his back. They were sinking fast into the freezing water.

‘I was going to let you live a little while longer,’ Glass shouted over the engine roar. ‘Looks like I made a mistake.’

Ben fought to get his wind. Glass bent down, picked him up by the collar of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. The man’s burnt face was twisted like a nightmare in the boat lights.

Then the broad puckered forehead was heading for Ben’s face. Ben dodged it and punched a knee into Glass’s groin.

Glass staggered back. ‘Pain?’ he yelled. ‘You can’t hurt me with pain.’ He stood upright and came on again, throwing himself bodily at Ben. Ben was driven backwards towards the exposed outboard propeller. He felt the scream of the spinning prop in his ear and the wind of it in his hair. A stab of agony as the blades sliced his shoulder.

He kicked back and heard Glass grunt from the blow. They went down, wrestling frantically in the bottom of the sinking boat. Then Glass was on top, forcing him down into the water, fingers around his throat, thumbs pressing deep into his windpipe.

Bubbles exploded from Ben’s mouth as he fought desperately to wrench the hands from his throat. But Glass’s strength was wild, and his was failing. He wasn’t going to make it. He was going to drown.

So he prised the two little fingers away from the black fists and he snapped them. Left and right, snap, snap, both together.

Glass let go with a scream. Ben’s arm flailed up out of the water and smashed what was left of Glass’s nose.

Then Ben was back on top, up to his waist in water as he pinned Glass down with his knees. He drove the man’s head against the splintered fibreglass side of the boat. Felt a crunch. He did it again. He felt another crunch, saw the blood spurt.

Jack Glass was a hard man to kill. This time Ben was going to make sure. He didn’t want to hear that Glass was dead. He wanted to see Glass dead. He hit him again. ‘You killed her!’ he was screaming. ‘You killed her!’

The floor of the boat slid another foot into the black water. The spinning propeller hit the surface and foam flew. Then the boats slipped completely under and Ben was suddenly swimming loose, treading water. His suit and shoes made it hard to stay afloat.

Glass’s head reared up out of the water two feet away, gasping for air, his mangled lips drawn back from his teeth.

Ben forced Glass’s head under the icy water. Glass kicked, struggled, surfaced.

Ben punched him and drove him down again, a hand on the top of his head to keep him under. Bubbles streamed up to the surface. Glass’s arms and legs thrashed, but more slowly now.

Ben held him under a little longer.

Glass’s struggles began to diminish. The stream of bubbles lessened.

Ben held him under a little longer.

Glass’s hand burst out from the water. The glove was gone. Melted fingers clawed at the air. Then the arm went limp. It flopped down with a splash.

Ben felt the tension go out of Glass. His inert body drifted with the heave of the swell. He seemed to blink once with his remaining eye. His mouth opened and a single bubble rolled out. It rose slowly to the surface and popped.

Then another bubble, a smaller one.

Then none at all. His face was relaxed. His arms were splayed outwards to the sides, floating loose in the water, fingers limp and curled. His eye stared upwards.

Ben let him go. Watched the body slip into the shadows.

The siren of the police motor launch was closer now. Torchbeams swept and searched the water.

Glass was finally gone. Ben floated in the freezing water, barely moving, staring down into the murky depths. The chill was numbing his body.

He thought about Leigh. His beautiful wife. The pain began to take him.

Then he kicked out and swam towards the quayside.