The Nosferatu Scroll

3

Marietta Perini stepped off the vaporetto at the Accademia stop on the southern side of the Grand Canal and walked briskly north across the Ponte dell’Accademia towards central Venice. Her route took her through the dog-leg shape of the Campo San Vidal and on into the Campo San Stefano, one of the biggest squares in Venice, second only to the Piazza San Marco. Both squares were busy with people: old men with small dogs on leads, women with children in prams and pushchairs, Venetians returning home after work or just couples and families strolling around with each other. Church bells rang out across the Campo San Stefano, sending peals of sound across the open space, almost drowning out the buzz of conversation from the cafes and restaurants that lined the square.

Everywhere and in all directions, people walked and talked, arms flying in extravagant gestures as they illustrated some point they were trying to make.

Marietta paused for a few moments by the monument in the centre of the square. Known irreverently to Venetians as the Cagalibri or ‘book-shitter’, it commemorated the life of the nineteenth-century writer and ideologue Nicolo Tommaseo, his studious career represented by the large pile of books positioned just behind him, and which had given rise to the statue’s nickname. As usual, there was a pigeon sitting on his head, and the colourful organic decoration that had been applied to the statue’s head and shoulders suggested that this was a favourite perch for some of Venice’s innumerable feathered residents.

Over to one side of the square was the reason Marietta had not continued straight across towards her destination. She had a weakness for ice cream, and just a few yards away was one of her favourite gelaterias. She glanced at her watch, checking she had enough time, then gave way to temptation, strolling across and choosing a large cornet, into which the smiling, dark-haired waiter inserted three balls of ice cream in her choice of flavours.

Then she walked on, taking small and delicious bites from the top of the cornet, and savouring each morsel, moving it around her mouth with her tongue before finally swallowing it. She moved slowly across the square, concentrating far more on what she was eating than on where she was going or on her surroundings.

Marietta was completely unaware that two men were following her, and had in fact picked her out even before she’d boarded the vaporetto at the Arsenale stop on the east side of Venice.

She wasn’t a random target. The two men had been sent out that evening to find her, and her alone. One of them was holding a folded sheet of paper in his hand. On it was a full-face photograph of their quarry, plus her address, and details of the company for which she worked. And there was a very specific and compelling reason why she had been chosen.

As she left the Campo San Stefano, Marietta took one of the narrow streets to the right, and almost immediately the press of people reduced, and she found herself walking along with just a handful of other pedestrians.

Then she took another turning, moving further and further from the crowded thoroughfares and closer to her destination: her boyfriend’s apartment near the centre of the old city. And only then did she wonder if the two men were following her.

Marietta didn’t feel concerned, not at first. Venice was a crowded city and it was almost impossible to walk down most of the streets at any time of the day or night without finding other people there. But when she took another turning, and the men continued to follow her down this narrow – and conspicuously empty – street, she glanced behind her again and then quickened her pace.

Immediately, both men started running and in a few seconds they had caught up with her. One of them slammed Marietta back against a wall. She opened her mouth to scream, but then collapsed to the ground when the second man produced a black pistol-like object from his pocket, pressed it against her stomach and pulled the trigger. The taser sent a charge of over one hundred thousand volts through her body, rendering her senseless for a few minutes.

This was all the time the men needed. One of them swiftly applied a sticking plaster gag to her face and lashed her wrists together with plastic cable ties, while the other man unzipped the bulky bag he was carrying, and pulled out a folded lightweight carpet – an old, but still very effective, way of concealing a body. He dropped it flat on the ground and, working together, they rolled the girl’s unconscious body into it. In moments, the bigger of the two men had hoisted the carpet on to his shoulder, and the two of them walked down the street towards one of the canals that penetrated central Venice from all sides. The other man took out a small mobile phone and spoke urgently into it.

When they reached the bank of the canal, they stopped and peered to their right, towards the junction with the encircling Grand Canal. A dark blue speedboat was heading towards them, a single figure at the controls. The vessel came to a halt at the landing stage in front of the two men. The driver climbed out, holding a mooring line which he wrapped around a vertical wooden post, and held the boat steady while the two men embarked in it. Then he released the rope and climbed back aboard himself, swung the boat around in a half circle and headed back the way he’d come.

The bundle in the carpet began moving, and one of the men unrolled it just enough to reveal the girl’s terrified face. He held the taser in front of her eyes and squeezed the trigger. A vicious high-voltage spark leapt between the two electrodes with an audible crackle.

‘Shut up and lie still,’ he hissed in colloquial Italian, ‘or I’ll give you another dose of this.’

Then he flipped the end of the carpet back over Marietta’s face.

‘You need to be careful with that thing,’ his companion murmured. ‘Hit somebody too often with it and you can kill them. And we need her in prime condition.’

‘I know, but all we need to do is keep her quiet until we get into the lagoon. Then she can scream and wriggle about all she wants to, because it won’t make any difference.’

At that moment, the powerboat swung left into the Grand Canal and heeled over as the driver opened the throttle and increased speed.