The Lizard's Bite Part 4

"Probably not," he replied, shaking his head, smiling. "You must understand. These days we're tied in regulations, from head to toe. In cases like this we have to account for every last piece of evidence, however unimportant. It's just paperwork really. Oh . . ."

He withdrew the evidence pouch from his pocket and held the transparent bag in front of her. "I do need you to identify this set for me, please. Yours has a green sash on it, I see. This has a crimson one, mostly burned by the heat but recognisable nonetheless. These were Uriel's?"

She gazed miserably at the object in the bag. "That's correct," she replied.

"And Bella's? They had a sash too?"

"Yellow." She was thinking. "And before you ask, Michele's is black and Gabriele's blue. We're an organised family. Michele likes to know who to blame if there's carelessness about."

"It would be useful for the records if we knew where Bella's keys are," Falcone said, as if it were a matter of small importance.

Raffaella's eyes wandered towards the furnace. "Surely . . . She was found there. Wouldn't that be the place to look?"

Falcone nodded. "Probably. I gather there's an abundance of material back at the Questura. This is an awkward time, signora. I really believe the police should intrude on a family's grief as little as possible. You've been pestered enough already. We may not know why this tragedy occurred but it seems clear it is . . . self-contained, shall I say?"

Raffaella Arcangelo's strong, handsome face became stern and determined. "It's inexplicable, Inspector. Uriel was my brother. He had a temper from time to time. All the Arcangelo men have. But to kill someone. His wife . . . No. I don't believe it. All I can think of is that there was a terrible accident of some kind."

Falcone's eyes sparkled. "Possibly. And Bella? What was she like? Had they been married long? Were they a . . . loving couple?"

Raffaella grimaced. "They'd been married for twelve years or so. I don't recall exactly. They'd been cold to one another for some time. These things happen in a marriage, I believe. She wanted children. It never happened."

He waited, then asked, "Bella told you this?"

There was a rush of anger in her eyes that the men understood. Raffaella Arcangelo was at the very limit of her patience with them.

"Uriel," she replied curtly. "What's that about blood being thicker than water? It was an accident, Inspector. There's no other possible explanation."

"An accident he could have avoided," Falcone replied quietly. "You see the problem for me there? Whatever happened in this room, he could have walked to the door, opened it and gone for help. Instead . . ."

Falcone left the matter there. Raffaella Arcangelo's deep, attractive eyes had welled with tears, suddenly, and it appeared to be as much a shock to her as it was to them.

She dashed a bitter look at her two brothers, who worked on the furnace oblivious to the world.

"I can't cope with this," she said finally, once she'd recovered some composure. "There are arrangements to be made. And just me to make them."

"If there's any way we can help," Costa offered.

Raffaella Arcangelo gave him a dark look. "This family buries its own. It's not police work. When do you wish to interview us again, Inspector?"

"Tomorrow," Falcone replied. "I'll be in touch about a convenient time. If you need me beforehand, you have my mobile number on the card."

"Tomorrow."

Then she walked off, stepping over the fallen doors, out into the bright blue day.

Falcone's eyes followed her departure avidly. There was an unhealthy amount of interest in his sharp, ascetic face.

"Is there something I should know, sir?" Costa asked.

"Presently," Falcone replied cheerily, then glanced at his watch. "Now, listen to me carefully. I'm going back to town to see what pa.s.ses for a morgue in this place. You poke around in here for a little while, just to let them know we're interested. Then take an hour for lunch. More, if you like. Visit a few cafes. Peroni's good at that. Be nosy. Be obvious. After that, talk to this Bracci family. I want people to understand we're asking lots of questions. That'll get back to Randazzo, which should do us some good. Tomorrow, first thing, I want to see this casual worker they had. Out on Sant' Erasmo. We've got the boat after all. Best use it. When you're through here it'll be close to five o'clock anyway. That's when your shift ends. You've got your women in tow. Leave early if you're finished."

Costa didn't know what to say. Falcone was a man who never let go once a case began. They were all used to working every hour of the day to get a result. Shifts, lunch, dinner, family . . . everything went out the window to get the inspector what he wanted.

"Why are you looking at me in that curious way?" Falcone asked.

"I just . . ." Costa stuttered. "Lunch? We never take lunch. This is a murder inquiry." We never take lunch. This is a murder inquiry."

"Ten out of ten for observation!" Falcone replied chirpily. "But you heard Randazzo. He's the commissario. He just wants a painstaking inquiry, and that is what I intend to deliver. Besides, you've seen this for yourself. What happened here happened in this room. I don't think there's a guilty party trying to escape us now, is there? In fact, I don't see anyone hereabouts keen to make much of a move at all. Even for a funeral . . ."

Costa was silent. The man had the scent of something, and it was useless trying to probe. He would say what he wanted, when he wanted, and nothing could bring it out into the light of day any earlier.

Falcone rattled the keys in his jacket pocket. "Oh," he added. "You'll be eating together tonight, presumably? The four of you? I imagine it's that little restaurant that Peroni found? The one with the peasant food?"

"'Family cooking' is how it's described, I think."

"Not in my family it wasn't. Still, I'm willing to slum it once in a while. You don't mind if I string along, do you? It's been ages since I saw the ladies. I won't intrude. I promise. The time?"

"Eight-thirty," Costa muttered, half rebellious. He hadn't wanted to share a meal with Peroni and Teresa. He and Emily had spent too little time together as it was. Now with another chair at the table . . .

"Good."

Falcone took one last, self-satisfied look around the room. Then he caught Costa's eye. "Two deaths usually mean two two murders, Nic. Remember that. Always start off from the obvious. Let the unlikely prove itself later. I'll make a detective of you yet." murders, Nic. Remember that. Always start off from the obvious. Let the unlikely prove itself later. I'll make a detective of you yet."

"Two murders?" murders?"

"Exactly," Falcone said. The keys rattled in his pocket again. "But at least we've one of them in the bag."

AT FOUR THAT AFTERNOON THE TWO WOMEN SAT ON the waterfront a little way down from San Marco, escaping the crowds and the heat. After the phone call from the men, breaking the bad news, they'd gorged on pasta in a little restaurant under the shadow of the Greci church's crooked tower, then bought a couple of gelati-a boozy confection of vanilla and brandy-soaked raisins for Teresa Lupo, a lemon water ice for Emily Deacon. Now they slumped, half dozing, a little bored, in the shade made by the prow of a gigantic cruise ship, with just enough room past the white metal for a view of the beautiful and busy lagoon beyond. the waterfront a little way down from San Marco, escaping the crowds and the heat. After the phone call from the men, breaking the bad news, they'd gorged on pasta in a little restaurant under the shadow of the Greci church's crooked tower, then bought a couple of gelati-a boozy confection of vanilla and brandy-soaked raisins for Teresa Lupo, a lemon water ice for Emily Deacon. Now they slumped, half dozing, a little bored, in the shade made by the prow of a gigantic cruise ship, with just enough room past the white metal for a view of the beautiful and busy lagoon beyond.

"Venice in August," Teresa moaned. "We must be mad. I mean, the place even smells smells. I thought that was supposed to be a myth."

"Italians complain too much," Emily declared. "Most of the time it is a myth. Sit back, ignore your nose and enjoy yourself."

"In this heat!"

Teresa Lupo felt as if she could squeeze a bucket of water out of her limp cotton shirt. The humidity was astonishing. It made every step she took an effort, a drain on what reserves of energy she had after the night train. She wasn't even sure how annoyed she was that Peroni wouldn't be on vacation with her after all at the end of the day. The city instilled lethargy in her. If he really could take extra time once the case was over, she could rework her own vacation schedule and possibly cut another two weeks. Emily was in the same position. They were livid initially, that went without saying. But it could still work out in the end.

And, she was out of Rome. Away from the morgue for the first time in months. It was the quiet season there anyway. Silvio Di Capua, her a.s.sistant, could surely cope. Silvio was becoming the coping kind more and more each day. Sometime soon she could cast off from the whole show if she liked, and never have to worry-much-about what was left behind. She'd talked the idea over with Peroni, usually when the grappa bottle had materialised after dinner. The two of them quitting the city, moving out to Tuscany. She could work as a rural doctor, st.i.tching up farmers, caring for their fat, pregnant wives. And he could go and try out what he really wanted all along, from when he was a country kid. Raising pigs on some rural smallholding, selling gorgeous roast porchetta porchetta at the weekend markets in and around Siena. Dreams . . . They were ridiculous, impossible. They teased her too, if only because, until Gianni Peroni came along, she'd never really had any. at the weekend markets in and around Siena. Dreams . . . They were ridiculous, impossible. They teased her too, if only because, until Gianni Peroni came along, she'd never really had any.

Emily finished her gelato, then threw her napkin into the nearby bin with an accuracy Teresa wished she could teach Peroni.

She stared out at the flat expanse of grey water, with its ever-active flotilla of vessels, the ferries and the vaporetti, the speedboats and the transport barges, then sighed.

"I'm going to have to tell him, Emily. I can't just not say a thing."

The two women had discussed this on the train, huddled close together in a second-cla.s.s carriage as it rattled through the black airless night. Teresa's shift hadn't finished till two a.m. There really wasn't an alternative to the early morning departure. And it was typical of Emily that she went along with the awkward timing. Teresa had known her now for little more than eight months. Even so, she'd found she was a good person to talk to. On this subject, the best. It was all so much easier than trying to explain the matter to Gianni Peroni's face.

Emily frowned, took the spent cone of the gelato from Teresa's fingers, and disposed of it in an oddly maternal fashion.

"You don't know for sure," she said, gazing steadily into her face. "Don't rush things."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Teresa snapped. "I'm a doctor, remember? I can cut through all that bulls.h.i.t with a knife. I used to dispense it myself once upon a time. That's how it is, Emily. Nothing's going to change."

You never let a patient lose all hope. Not unless there really was no alternative. All those specialists she'd seen, without Peroni's knowledge, had done their best to hide the truth. But it was impossible. She wasn't fazed by talk of severe tubal occlusion. She knew how to unpick what they told her. When she did, she was amazed to discover that there could be something so fundamentally, if benignly, wrong with her reproductive system without her knowing. And she could read the look in all their eyes too, when she fixed them with every last unavoidable question she could dream up. Nothing-not surgery, not even in vitro fertilisation-would make a difference. Teresa Lupo was-she loathed the word but it summed up the situation with an apt finality-barren, and would remain so for the rest of her diminishing supposedly childbearing years.

Emily looked downcast. Teresa hated herself for that brief outburst. It was unlike her, and undeserved too.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said, and squeezed the American woman's hands. Nic had done well with her, Teresa thought. She was kind and pretty and straight as a die. Intelligent too. One day she'd make a tidy living as an architect in her own right. Teresa didn't doubt that, though she couldn't help but wonder whether it was a profession that would sit well alongside a cop for a partner. "I hereby renounce my bad temper and undertake to be the epitome of sweet and happy innocence for the remainder of this holiday."

"Let's not get too ambitious," Emily cautioned.

"Why not? The idea was ridiculous in the first place. Gianni and I having kids. Him pushing fifty, with two of his own already. Me a spinster of thirty . . . whatever. Who, up till the point he came along, thought children belonged in a pet shop."

Emily's face clouded with shrewd, measured scepticism. Teresa envied her looks so much. Emily was slim, she was blonde, she had fine straight hair that never frizzed. She was the sort of woman other women hated. No, not hated hated exactly. Just looked at and thought: exactly. Just looked at and thought: why you, not me why you, not me? Because it all seemed to come so easily to her, though perhaps that was deceptive. There'd been times recently when Teresa had thought so. When she believed she saw a shadow cross Emily's face if the subject of Rome and Nic and that big old house off the Via Appia Antica, where she now lived and studied alone, came into the discussion.

This was in danger of turning into one of those conversations Teresa hated. The kind she normally disrupted with a tantrum, a kiss or a sudden demand for a coffee, none of which was available or appropriate in the circ.u.mstances.

"The trouble is Gianni," she confessed. "He'll take it in his stride. I never met anyone who copes, straight out of the box, with whatever c.r.a.p gets thrown in his direction. I'm not like that. I dwell on it. If I get the chance, I throw myself into the work and try to forget what's running round my head. Doesn't take long either. Except I can't now. Not here. Not . . ." She waved her hand in the direction of the campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore, like a mirror image of the one in San Marco, reflecting in the dappled water. " . . . with all this."

"Art," Emily declared, with a stern glance, one with that disturbing maternal touch about it again.

"I don't know a single thing about art!"

"I'll teach you."

She was pouting like a schoolgirl, and she knew it. She was lost for words too, a touch ashamed. A woman in her mid-thirties shouldn't be leaning on a slim, pretty American, the young girlfriend of a man she liked and admired. She shouldn't be hoping some twenty-six-year-old could lend a little balance to a life that had spent so many years out on the far edge of normality.

"Do you have anything gory here?" Teresa asked. "It's just so I can keep my hand in."

Emily Deacon frowned. "Not really. Venice is different. More . . . subtle. I imagine that's the right word. But I'll do my best."

"Thanks," Teresa said. "You make an old woman very happy. And . . ."

Emily Deacon was laughing at that last one. Maybe that was why Teresa felt able to say it, to let slip the dumb thought that should have remained unsaid, hidden at the back of her head.

" . . . when you two come around to having kids I can be the Mad Aunt. The soft touch for presents. Babysitter. Whatever . . ."

She swore at herself, then looked at Emily Deacon, who was now staring at the lagoon in silence. It was a beautiful view, Teresa decided, even with that faint, antiseptic stink behind everything.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Emily. That was really thoughtless of me. Presumptuous too. I just meant . . ."

Those long, young fingers squeezed her hand. Emily's pale, smiling face turned to look at her. Teresa hoped she was mistaken, but it seemed there was just the hint of moisture at the corner of those sharp blue eyes.

"It doesn't matter," Emily remarked, with a quiet insistence.

ALDO BRACCI WAS A SQUAT, SOUR-FACED MAN AROUND fifty, with a bald head and narrow, beady eyes. He worked out of a tiny office on the ground floor of the family furnace almost a kilometre from the Isola degli Arcangeli, down a dark narrow fifty, with a bald head and narrow, beady eyes. He worked out of a tiny office on the ground floor of the family furnace almost a kilometre from the Isola degli Arcangeli, down a dark narrow ramo ramo near the museum. It was a world away from the Murano the tourists saw. Dismal, malodorous pa.s.sages ran up from the ca.n.a.l, high-walled on both sides, too slender to take more than a couple of pedestrians at a time. The rank aroma of foundry smoke and spent gas hung in the air. There was no artifice, no pretension in the workaday premises around the Bracci furnace. These were people desperate to earn a living out of that daily dance with molten gla.s.s and the blazing fire. Bracci, in his dusty blue overalls, looked more hungry than most. The chaos in the little office-invoices and bills everywhere-and the meagreness of the works told their own story. These were minnows, a cla.s.s beneath the grand names found close to the vaporetti stops. Individuals who lived in the margins left by the big players, hoping to find some crumbs falling between the cracks. near the museum. It was a world away from the Murano the tourists saw. Dismal, malodorous pa.s.sages ran up from the ca.n.a.l, high-walled on both sides, too slender to take more than a couple of pedestrians at a time. The rank aroma of foundry smoke and spent gas hung in the air. There was no artifice, no pretension in the workaday premises around the Bracci furnace. These were people desperate to earn a living out of that daily dance with molten gla.s.s and the blazing fire. Bracci, in his dusty blue overalls, looked more hungry than most. The chaos in the little office-invoices and bills everywhere-and the meagreness of the works told their own story. These were minnows, a cla.s.s beneath the grand names found close to the vaporetti stops. Individuals who lived in the margins left by the big players, hoping to find some crumbs falling between the cracks.

Bracci cast a weary eye over a dated-looking vase newly out of the workshop, cursed in impenetrable Venetian, then walked over to the office and placed it in a pile marked "Seconds." The two cops waited in their seats, wondering, Costa feeling a little edgy after downing three coffees in succession as they trawled the bars for gossip before approaching Aldo Bracci. They had followed Falcone's orders to the letter. They'd eaten a couple of plates of pasta in a small, unimpressive restaurant. To Costa's surprise it had been a smart move. People hereabouts weren't naturally talkative. Until you mentioned the magic name, Arcangelo. Then a picture began to emerge, both of the family and of Murano itself, a place with little time for newcomers who failed to appreciate their place.

"Kids," Bracci cursed. "You teach them and then they just p.i.s.s off somewhere chasing money. There's no loyalty in this business anymore. No craft. It's just cash, cash, cash."

"At least you've got staff," Peroni noted. "More than I saw at your late brother-in-law's place."

Bracci's cold eyes glowered at them. "Men like to be paid from time to time. Don't you?"

"Sure," Costa replied. "Is this a convenient time to talk, sir? We don't wish to intrude on your grief."

Not that there seemed much of that, Costa thought. Bracci was as brisk and unmoved as the Arcangeli, though in a different way. There was a sign on the door of the furnace when they arrived, one that announced "Closed for mourning." It was only when they persisted that they realised the place was working, behind shuttered windows, perhaps not wanting the world outside to know.

"Grief," Bracci repeated. "Bella got a morning of grief. When you people finally allow us to bury her she'll get some more. Not that it makes much difference to her now, does it? We don't overdo the ceremonies. You're outsiders. You won't understand."

Costa and Peroni looked at one another. Neither was sure how to conduct this interview. Bracci didn't look like the bereaved brother. Nor did he seem entirely detached either.

"Are the Arcangeli outsiders?" Costa asked.

Bracci stifled a grim laugh. "What do you think? You've met them?"

Peroni shook his head. "They've been here fifty, sixty years or something? How long does it take?"

"It was 1952," Bracci corrected him. "That arrogant old b.a.s.t.a.r.d sold his boatyard in Chioggia and took on that wreck of an island, thinking he could teach us all a lesson or two."

"Did he?" Costa asked.

The man wriggled on the old, battered leather chair at the desk. "For a while. Angelo Arcangelo was a different breed. Not like those kids of his at all. He treated them so hard they never learned how to stand on their own two feet. Stupid. Angelo knew how to make money, though. He knew how to sweet-talk all those rich foreigners. To say to them, 'Look, see this! It's how they made it three centuries ago! Burnt seaweed and pebbles. A furnace burning wood. It's perfect! Think what it'll be worth twenty years from now!' Or to get some so-called modern artist to come up with some designs he could pretend were some kind of masterpiece or something. Except . . ."

He reached down into the desk drawers and pulled out a small box that rattled as he lifted it. "Fashions change. You change with them or one day no one rings the bell."

He scattered the contents of the box on the table. They were tiny trinkets, gaudily coloured. Fake cartoon characters. Mickey Mouse. Homer Simpson. Donald Duck. Only just recognisable. They were junk, and Bracci knew it.

"I can get some schoolkid in here turning out fifty of those an hour. I pay him four euros. I sell them for fifty euros to some huckster near the station. He pa.s.ses them on for four, maybe five a pop to the idiot tourists who want to take home some genuine Murano gla.s.s. Which is what they got too. No arguments there. Do you think the Arcangeli are going to stoop that low?"

That wasn't their business, Costa thought, and said so.

"So what is their business, smart guy?" Bracci asked. "Let me tell you. They work in a museum. That stupid old furnace, ten times bigger than they need. They got no modern equipment, nothing that saves time or money. They use all these old recipes and designs. It takes them four times longer than the rest of us to make something that, for most of the world out there, looks exactly the same. You think they're going to get four times the price? No. Not even double. Not even the same price sometimes, because this is old stuff they're selling. Designs that went out years ago. With flaws, because the old ways give you flaws and no one buys the fact they're really features, not anymore. You know what the Arcangelo business is? Going bust, that's what. And if it weren't for Bella I wouldn't care a d.a.m.n. Except now she's gone, so as far as I'm concerned the Arcangeli can go screw themselves. Go sell the whole d.a.m.n place to that Englishman and turn it into an amus.e.m.e.nt park or something. Who gives a s.h.i.t?"

"The Englishman?" Costa asked blithely.

"Oh, come on!" Bracci spat back. "It's an open secret they've been trying to screw a deal out of him. It'd be done by now if the old man hadn't set up so many covenants on it the lawyers are getting rich trying to deal with them all. Mind you . . ." Bracci raised a finger to make his point. " . . . what the Englishman wants, the Englishman gets. I wouldn't want to jerk him around for a moment. Too many important friends. And if he buys that island . . ."

"What?" Peroni demanded.