The Nosferatu Scroll

57

Despite the veiled threat Bianchi had made for Bronson to stay away from the investigation, he had absolutely no intention of sitting around in his hotel room waiting for the phone to ring. Angela had to be on that island, and he was determined – after all he’d been through – to stay close to her.

This time he knew exactly where he was going, and steered a direct course from the mouth of the Canal Grande across the waterway and through the gap between the islands of Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore. Once he was clear of the water traffic around the islands, he opened the throttle and accelerated towards his destination. He kept his eyes open, looking for any sign of the police launch that Bianchi had said he’d be sending to the island to investigate. He saw several of the distinctive blue-and-white craft in the lagoon, but none appeared to be heading in the direction he was going.

After several minutes of travelling at almost full speed, Bronson reached the small islet where he’d beached the boat previously. He throttled back, bringing the powerboat to an almost complete stop about fifty yards away from the shore of the islet, and for a few moments considered his next course of action. The problem he’d had previously was that the bulk of the house on the larger island to the south of him obscured his view of the jetty where the two men must have landed. It would obviously be far better for him to find a position from which he could see this part of the island, if only to observe the arrival of the police launch – assuming, of course, that one was going to turn up.

Finally he made a plan. He would head south, towards the end of the lagoon, just like any other tourist exploring this part of Venice, then turn round and come back. That way he would achieve two things: he’d get a far better look at the island itself, and, with any luck, he’d find another island from which he’d be able to watch. At all costs he had to avoid alerting anybody on the island of his interest in them. In other words, he had to play the tourist card.

Steering the boat around the islet, he meandered south, sitting on the plastic seat in the powerboat and looking all around him, exactly as an innocent tourist would do. But behind his mirrored sunglasses, he was focusing on the island to his right.

As he’d observed earlier, the island was a reasonable size – big enough for the house to look comfortable in its setting – and as he steered the boat further south, a small inlet came into view. Within it, he could see a wooden jetty and beside it a launch, quite a bit larger than the powerboat Bronson had hired. The inlet wasn’t very big and as far as he could see, there wasn’t much room for any other vessels if the launch was moored there.

Then he noticed something else. Behind the house, and about midway between the property and the inlet, was an area of level ground that appeared to have been tarmacked, and on it he could just about make out something painted in white. Playing the tourist again, Bronson looked casually around him, then turned back to look once more towards the island. And now, from his slightly altered perspective, he could see exactly what was on the tarmac.

It was a large white circle, inside which was painted a letter ‘H’: a helicopter landing-pad, which made perfect sense. Bianchi had told him that the island was owned by a senior Italian politician, so travelling to the island by boat would probably be a last resort. It would be so much more impressive, and cater to the politician’s inevitable sense of his own importance, to arrive there by helicopter.

Bronson continued ambling gently south, past the island and towards a handful of others in the same loose group, most of which had houses built on them. Again, he tried to look like a tourist as he steered the craft around and past these islands.

About two hundred yards from the politician’s island was another very small island, upon which was a simple structure that looked something like a car port – just a flat roof resting on four vertical supports with a rough wooden table underneath it. Bronson guessed that was probably a picnic spot, the roof providing some shade from the heat of the midday sun. He looked closely at the island, trying to see if there was anyone ashore there. He glanced at his watch. It was now late afternoon in November, and unlikely to be in use. Certainly, it appeared to be deserted.

Bronson spotted a narrow bay where he thought he could easily beach his craft. He took a quick look around, but there were no other boats near him, and less than ten minutes later, he was hauling on the bow line to pull the powerboat a few feet further up the muddy beach. He turned off the outboard motor, tied the rope around the trunk of a small tree that was growing near the beach, checked he had his binoculars and the pistol – just in case – and made his way quickly across the small island until he could see his target.

He had quite a good view of the front of the house, and of the small inlet with its wooden jetty, and the launch moored against it. He lay down, resting on his elbows, and peered through the binoculars. There was no sign of life around the house so he switched his attention to the lagoon that lay beyond the island.

And then, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, he saw an approaching police launch, its distinctive colour scheme making it quite unmistakable. It looked as if Bianchi had done what he had promised, and had despatched a police patrol to check out the island. Bronson was glad that both he and his powerboat were well out of sight.

He moved the binoculars again, and looked back at the house. It was, like many of the other properties he’d seen on the outlying islands, built of a kind of grey stone, the windows fitted with wooden shutters and the roof covered in terracotta tiles. But as he looked at it again, he was struck by something else. All the shutters on the windows were firmly closed, and the house seemed to exude an indefinable sense of desolation, of emptiness. If he hadn’t known better – if he hadn’t seen the two men in the powerboat arrive with his own eyes – he would have assumed that it was deserted.

But then, bearing in mind the activities of the group that had snatched Angela, they would hardly be likely to advertise their presence.

The police launch was now much closer. It had slowed down, and the bow wave was about half the size it had been previously. As Bronson watched, the boat swung around the end of the island and slowed even more, finally coming to a halt beside the entrance to the inlet, where the driver of the vessel reversed the direction of the propeller in a short burst to bring the boat to a stop. He didn’t steer the boat into the inlet, which puzzled Bronson for a moment until he focused the binoculars more carefully and saw a substantial chain locked across the seaward end of the inlet, preventing the launch from entering.

Two police officers leapt nimbly on to the jetty from the cockpit of the launch and walked unhurriedly along a gravel path towards the house. At the front door they paused and then one of them pressed the bell push. But the door remained firmly closed and there was no sign of life whatsoever from the house. Eventually, the officers stepped back from the door and looked up at the house. Even from the distance he was watching, Bronson saw one of them give an expressive shrug of his shoulders, then they walked back to the police launch and got back on board. The driver gunned the engine, turned sharply in a sudden spray of white water and accelerated away from the island.

For a few seconds, Bronson just lay there staring through the binoculars at the departing vessel. As searches went, the most accurate description of what he’d just witnessed would be ‘pathetic’. The officers had made no attempt to look around the island, to try opening the main door, or even to try the other entrance to the house – there would certainly be a second and maybe even a third door into the property.

He sighed. If the Italian police weren’t prepared to search the place, he would just have to do it himself.

With a deep sense of foreboding, he stood up, took a final look towards the house on the island, and strode back to the small bay where he’d left his boat.