The Lizard's Bite Part 17

Peroni eyed the starry crowd mournfully, then jerked his old, rather shiny tie tight to his thick neck, hoping, perhaps, the crooked knot would hide the missing b.u.t.ton on his shirt.

"Thank you, Leo," the big man moaned. "Thanks a million."

Teresa gave him a straight look. "What's your beef? You're wearing a tie. For you that is is fancy dress." fancy dress."

"But . . ."

"But if you knew," she continued, "you'd never have come. Would you?"

There was another figure on the jetty now. She was walking out onto the bare stone jetty in a long, piercingly bright white gown, a set of swan-feather wings on her back, the perfect, golden-haired angel, poised outside the shining gla.s.s palace, her outline dancing in the faintly malodorous heat like a figure from a dream.

Emily Deacon looked immensely happy, fulfilled. At home on the terrace of this palazzo, a place where Costa knew he could never feel at ease. Accompanying her was Hugo Ma.s.siter, wearing the costume of a key figure from the commedia dell'arte commedia dell'arte. Il Capitano, Il Capitano, the boastful, violent soldier, a bundle of arrogance hidden inside a naval officer's blue uniform, a fake sword by his side, owner of a painted mask with a long phallic nose which now sat on Ma.s.siter's shoulder, its expression veering between covetousness and cowardice. the boastful, violent soldier, a bundle of arrogance hidden inside a naval officer's blue uniform, a fake sword by his side, owner of a painted mask with a long phallic nose which now sat on Ma.s.siter's shoulder, its expression veering between covetousness and cowardice.

Something flickered inside Nic Costa's head: a memory from school. Of all those old theatre stories, one in particular. About the Captain and how he kidnapped the lovely Isabella, the inamorata, inamorata, the innocent and beautiful woman in love who never needed to hide behind a mask or, if Costa recalled correctly, saw much behind the masks of others either. the innocent and beautiful woman in love who never needed to hide behind a mask or, if Costa recalled correctly, saw much behind the masks of others either.

THE INTERIOR OF THE PALAZZO DEGLI ARCANGELI WAS breathtaking. Banks of orchids and roses ma.s.sed in fragrant lines at the hall's edges. Broad white ribbons ran in festoons from the wood and metal superstructure of the building, meeting to form a crown around the trunk of the fossilised palm tree at its centre. The three rising semicircles of gla.s.s now glittered with the winking eyes of hundreds of tiny floodlights set over the crowd below, a field of anonymous actors playing such old, old parts Costa had to delve deep into his childhood to remember their names. At the rear, on a low podium, the small orchestra was sawing away, still audible over the chatter of three hundred people, enough to make up several breathtaking. Banks of orchids and roses ma.s.sed in fragrant lines at the hall's edges. Broad white ribbons ran in festoons from the wood and metal superstructure of the building, meeting to form a crown around the trunk of the fossilised palm tree at its centre. The three rising semicircles of gla.s.s now glittered with the winking eyes of hundreds of tiny floodlights set over the crowd below, a field of anonymous actors playing such old, old parts Costa had to delve deep into his childhood to remember their names. At the rear, on a low podium, the small orchestra was sawing away, still audible over the chatter of three hundred people, enough to make up several commedia dell'arte commedia dell'arte troupes. troupes.

Nic Costa thought he could detect Emily's touch in places: vases of tall white lilies, a handful of medieval paintings, copies probably, hung in old gold frames, and skeins of fine gold wire, wrought in fluid, writhing shapes five metres above the crowd, like a near-invisible skin between them and the fragile gla.s.s high above. Everything was muted yet purposeful too. Still, the event had the feeling of a party taking place in some newly reborn building waiting to find its purpose, a place that had woken from some long slumber only to find itself invaded by vandals.

They conversed briefly with Leo Falcone and Raffaella, who clung to the inspector's arm looking a little cowed by the evening's glamour. Then they ploughed on, feeling awkward in such company, Costa searching for Emily again in the gaudy packed throng, Peroni and Teresa following in his wake.

It was soon apparent that the entire Arcangelo clan was there. Most men wore the bauta, bauta, the tight powder-white traditional mask that fitted over the nose and cheeks, but left the mouth free for eating and drinking. Even so, these were modern times. After a little while in the baking, close room, the awkward fittings must have grown tiresome. Both Arcangelo brothers were out of theirs within minutes. Michele conversed with a woman Costa didn't recognise, looking animated, cheerful almost. A different creature from the surly individual they'd tried to pump for information earlier. Gabriele was less changed. Miserable in his plague doctor costume, he stood alone, close to the drinks table, his long-nosed mask on his shoulder, gulping at a gla.s.s of spritz, unwilling or unable to strike up a conversation with anyone. the tight powder-white traditional mask that fitted over the nose and cheeks, but left the mouth free for eating and drinking. Even so, these were modern times. After a little while in the baking, close room, the awkward fittings must have grown tiresome. Both Arcangelo brothers were out of theirs within minutes. Michele conversed with a woman Costa didn't recognise, looking animated, cheerful almost. A different creature from the surly individual they'd tried to pump for information earlier. Gabriele was less changed. Miserable in his plague doctor costume, he stood alone, close to the drinks table, his long-nosed mask on his shoulder, gulping at a gla.s.s of spritz, unwilling or unable to strike up a conversation with anyone.

Costa excused himself as he pushed past a couple who were still masked and dressed like neon peac.o.c.ks, in a fashion that seemed more suited to a carnival in Brazil than a private party in Venice. Then he rounded a table of canapes, sighed as Peroni picked up a fistful and began munching, turned and found himself staring into the dry, dead face of Gianfranco Randazzo.

"Someone else in civilian dress," the commissario moaned, glancing at Peroni too. "That's a relief. Are you wondering what the h.e.l.l you're doing at this charade?"

"Eating," Peroni declared, holding up a couple of delicate biscuits bearing bresaola, bresaola, wind-dried beef, topped with sauteed porcini. The big man grimaced at his gla.s.s of wind-dried beef, topped with sauteed porcini. The big man grimaced at his gla.s.s of prosecco prosecco. "Don't suppose they've got any beer here?"

"Duty officers aren't supposed to drink," Randazzo said curtly.

"We're aware of that, sir," Costa replied, toasting the commissario. In spite of Peroni's protests it was good stuff, better than the weak fizz he usually found in the Veneto. "Right now we're off duty. Right now we can do what the h.e.l.l we like."

Randazzo scowled. The man seemed tense, more unhappy than usual. "So what's new? I suppose I ought to be grateful. At least I get a break from the complaints. You know we hardly ever need to send a man to Murano. It's that kind of place. Now I've got three out there. Doing nothing but push back the crowds. Why didn't you just take Bracci into custody?"

"On what grounds?" Peroni asked, intrigued.

"That's for you to invent," Randazzo snapped. "Do I have to tell you everything?"

The commissario glanced at Teresa Lupo. Her presence made him uneasy somehow, a fact she wasn't likely to miss.

"I suppose you had a good day too," he mumbled. "Poking your nose in our business. I should have been told about that trip to Tosi. Before it happened."

"Tosi phoned you?" she asked, surprised.

"Of course! He works for me."

"Lucky man," Teresa Lupo said pleasantly, then turned her back on him and rejoined Peroni.

Randazzo prodded Costa in the chest. "There are limits," he said, "to what I will take from you three."

Nic Costa wasn't interested in pursuing this conversation. Randazzo was a small man. Ma.s.siter's man, if Costa understood the situation correctly. He was here because he'd been told to be here. The grumpy, sour-faced commissario could entertain himself. Besides, he'd spotted Emily. She was over on the far side of the room, a dreamlike figure in white, free of Ma.s.siter, getting an energetic chat-up line from some idiot dressed up like an eighteenth-century French aristocrat.

Nic Costa nodded at Randazzo. "I genuinely believe that to be true, sir. If you'll excuse me."

Then, with a mild shoulder charge, a toned-down version of the play from his rugby days, Costa was through the costumed scrum, pushing them aside with a stream of muttered apologies, determined she wouldn't get away.

He picked up two fresh gla.s.ses of prosecco prosecco from a bewigged waiter in blue silk and backed his way through the throng to find her. from a bewigged waiter in blue silk and backed his way through the throng to find her.

Emily laughed, a warm, entrancing sound, and took her gla.s.s.

His eyes roved over the white, white angel costume, the perfect feathered wings. "I brought your clothes. You asked me. And this . . ."

He took the tiny bouquet of bloodred peperoncini peperoncini from Piero Scacchi's smallholding out of his pocket. from Piero Scacchi's smallholding out of his pocket.

"Doesn't seem much, in these surroundings."

Emily placed the waxy peppers carefully in the feathers of her right wing, where they stood like some strange, symmetrical wound.

"It's the loveliest thing I've seen all day," she told him.

There was a wicked radiance in her eyes. This was all a game. A tease, maybe.

"Don't you like it?" Emily Deacon revolved once, like an ethereal model, just for his eyes.

"No."

"Nic!"

He scowled. "I like it. Where on earth did you get it?"

"Hugo ordered it from some costumier in the city. It was his idea."

"I bet. Did he have any others?"

She blinked. "I suspect so," she answered frankly. "I learned quite a lot about Hugo Ma.s.siter today."

"Does any of it help?"

"I don't know."

She ducked backwards, behind one of the slender iron columns that ran in a line close to each edge of the hall, supporting the balcony above. There were crowds above them, scores of people, their feet clattering on the ironwork. The place seemed too delicate to be real. Her bright, sharp eyes scanned the mob to make sure no one was listening. The lively sound of the orchestra, now working its way through the spring section of the Seasons, rang behind them.

"Probably not," she disclosed quietly. "I learned that he's obsessed with Laura Conti. The woman who almost ruined him, if you remember."

Costa nodded. The story of Laura Conti and Daniel Forster wouldn't go away.

"He doesn't look the romantic type to me. He's rich. The kind of man who could have pretty much any woman he feels like."

"I can't believe you said that!" she complained. "Do you really think it's only about the money?"

"No! I meant . . . He's not married. He seems a solitary type, not someone to enter into a long-term relationship. I rather thought men like that attracted a certain kind of woman."

"That's a retraction of a sort, I suppose. How about this as an explanation? The reason Hugo's obsessed with Laura Conti is precisely because she's not not that kind of woman. She's someone who actually said no to him. Or perhaps said maybe, and then no, which would be even worse." that kind of woman. She's someone who actually said no to him. Or perhaps said maybe, and then no, which would be even worse."

"That would get to him?" he asked.

"It would get to most men, wouldn't it?"

There was something here he still didn't understand. And it got in the way too.

"As Falcone reminds me constantly," Costa went on, "Daniel Forster and Laura Conti aren't part of this case. What about the Arcangeli? What's his relationship with them?"

She shrugged. "I don't know any more than you do. He likes women. Perhaps he was Bella's secret lover. It wouldn't surprise me. You have to appreciate something. Women matter to him."

"I'd gathered that."

"No," she said with a sigh. "This isn't about me. It's . . . universal. Hugo's the kind of individual who sees women as a challenge. Scalps for his hunting belt. It's not about love. Or s.e.x even. It's about possession. He's more charming than most, but that's what he's like, and he's very good at it too."

Costa found the words just slipped out, unbidden. "Does he want you for a scalp?"

"Probably," she answered without hesitation. "But I don't feel flattered. Men like Hugo want women the way others want cars. It's all about ownership, Nic. I rather imagine that once he's sat in the driving seat, so to speak, the attraction wears off. But with Laura Conti, it didn't, for some reason. That's what's bugging him still. It doesn't make sense to him. It doesn't fit in his neat, nicely ordered world, which is a place where he's very much in control." She took a sip of the prosecco, prosecco, smiled. "And it won't go away. Bella, on the other hand, did. That's as much as I know." smiled. "And it won't go away. Bella, on the other hand, did. That's as much as I know."

"I guess that's a kind of definition of love. The not-going-away part."

"I guess."

Her blue eyes were on him. When he saw her like this, lovely inside the stupid, radiant dress, with the stain of the peperoncini peperoncini by her shoulder, he wondered why he ever doubted the bond between them. by her shoulder, he wondered why he ever doubted the bond between them.

"I think I've had enough of this masquerade, Nic. Shall we go?"

Costa's eyes swept the room, the silk and the satin, the wigs and the pale, powdered faces. "You'd leave these people for a little police apartment in Castello?"

"No," she answered with a wry smile. "I'd leave them for you, idiot."

Nic Costa laughed. That was one more talent she possessed. Then he took one last glance around him. Leo Falcone was talking earnestly to Commissario Randazzo now, free of the black-clad, shy form of Raffaella Arcangelo, whose elder brother, now next to Falcone, still held the unknown woman in conversation, an avaricious expression on his maimed face. Close by, Peroni and Teresa were embroiled in an animated discussion by the side of an attendant whose food tray they were pillaging.

His eyes roved to the nodding waters, the moored boats, the stone jetty. There was someone there. The last person Nic Costa expected to see was walking into the Palazzo degli Arcangeli at that moment.

GIANNI PERONI POSSESSED AN ARMOURY OF TALENTS for infuriation. At that moment, surrounded by costumed buffoons, slightly giddy on three rapid gla.s.ses of good for infuriation. At that moment, surrounded by costumed buffoons, slightly giddy on three rapid gla.s.ses of good prosecco, prosecco, alongside untold canapes of lobster and alongside untold canapes of lobster and bresaola, bresaola, Teresa Lupo truly believed he was entering upon fresh ground in his ability to drive her crazy. Teresa Lupo truly believed he was entering upon fresh ground in his ability to drive her crazy.

"Don't worry about it," Peroni said again. "It'll be OK. We'll see another doctor. There's a witch back home near Siena. Well, I say witch witch. It's more kind of folk remedies and stuff . . ."

"Gianni!" she barked, loud enough to send the harlequin next to her trotting off hastily for somewhere a little less noisy. "Are you listening to a single word I say? This isn't a question of finding the right doctor. Or some country quack from one of your hick villages. It's human anatomy. Physics. Not some kind of magic."

"That's what you said about spontaneous combustion," Peroni reminded her. "Until you started looking."

Her head whirled. Sometimes she felt like thumping his big chest with both fists. "No. It's not like it at all. What I said was true. Spontaneous combustion, the way people think of it, doesn't doesn't exist. But maybe something we interpret as it does. That is exist. But maybe something we interpret as it does. That is not not what I am talking about here." what I am talking about here."

"Severe tubal occlusion."

Notch up one more trick for the fury machine. Peroni's p.r.o.nunciation was perfect, even if he didn't understand the first thing about what the condition was.

"Which means?" she demanded.

"Which means we look for some other solution. If that's what you want . . ."

"Christ! Let me put this in layman's terms. The wiring's burnt out. The plumbing's f.u.c.ked. I am a freak-"

"If you were a freak they wouldn't have a name for it-"

"Shut up and listen, will you?"

He wasn't smiling. Or rather, he was, but in that wan, "just tell me what to do" way that always made her feel helpless.

"I'm listening."

She wished it were somewhere less noisy. Less public. It had been a mistake to bring up the subject when she did. But the prosecco prosecco prompted her to get the thing over and done with. She had to get the news off her chest somehow. Keeping it tight inside herself did no good at all. prompted her to get the thing over and done with. She had to get the news off her chest somehow. Keeping it tight inside herself did no good at all.

"I can't have children," she said slowly. "That will never change. You can fool yourself otherwise if you like, but I won't, Gianni. I can't. It just makes things . . . worse."

Teresa Lupo was aware there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, just in time for Peroni's arms to come round her frame in a powerful, firm embrace.

"Does it matter?" she whispered into the side of his head, half wondering what all these people around them were making of the spectacle.

"Of course it matters," he murmured.

She snivelled on his chest, then looked up into his battered face. "But I want want children, Gianni." children, Gianni."

"And I want what you want. And we both don't get this, together."

Together.

Just as Emily had said, on the waterfront, the day before, both of them dog-tired, watching the dazzle on the water, picking at ice cream.

Together was what counted. Together was what would count for Emily and Nic too, one day. Teresa Lupo felt that in her bones. It was a fact, a solid, unmistakable piece of the future slowly emerging into the present, struggling to take shape.

She glanced across the room. Emily was alone, a solitary white figure standing out against the pale old stonework of the hall, abandoned by Nic again for some reason, one Teresa wished she knew so she could beat him around the head with it and say, Look, for G.o.d's sake! People like this don't walk into your life-anyone's life-every day. Look, for G.o.d's sake! People like this don't walk into your life-anyone's life-every day.

Cops and love, she thought. What a mixture. What a . . .