The Lizard's Bite by David Hewson Read Free Book Online Page A

Arcangeli. Not even when Angelo was alive. This was not through choice. Force had simply never been needed, not when the fierceness of a cold, heartless eye could stun any of them into submission.
    “We
will
not fail, Raffaella. I will not allow that to happen.”
    He brushed the crumbs off his lap with a brisk hand, then stood up. Gabriele, to her disgust, was rushing down his food and coffee in order to do the same.
    “Where on earth are you going?” she asked.
    “To test the fires,” Michele replied. “To connect the gas. To see how soon we can get the foundry up and running. I’ll bring in others from the outside if need be. The insurance money will surely pay for it.”
    “Do you know that?” she demanded.
    “Nothing’s insurmountable. We’ll hire some furnace space elsewhere if it’s necessary. What’s a fire in this business? It used to happen all the time.”
    He was so single-minded. He really believed this was all there was to consider.
    Gabriele finally found the strength to speak. “We’ll lose a day or two, Michele. That at least. Don’t fool yourself.”
    “A day, a day,” sniffed the older man, waving an arm. “What’s a day?”
    “It’s a day in which we fail to make something no one wishes to buy,” Raffaella said sourly, hating the bitter tone inside her voice the moment she heard it. This was a kind of heresy. The one taboo subject barred from discussion beneath the eye that gazed constantly out onto the lagoon.
    Both men turned to regard her with undisguised aversion.
    “It’s true,” she insisted, determined not to be bullied into silence. “The longer you two fools stay away from that place, the longer the money lasts. If you make nothing, Michele, we don’t have to pay anyone for raw materials, do we?”
    “We don’t pay anyone as it is,” he retorted unpleasantly. “Leave business to men. It’s not for you.”
    She felt the red heat of anger rise in her head, a foreign emotion, one that had been placed there by tragedy and refused to go away.
    “So what’s a woman to do in this position? To bury our brother and his wife? Where? And with what?”
    Michele nodded at the window. “You know where Uriel belongs. The island. For now anyway. The Braccis can deal with the other one. She’s their problem. She should have stayed that way all along.”
    Her voice rose to a screech. She couldn’t help it. “We can’t afford San Michele!” she yelled at him, unable to control her emotions. “Undertakers want money. Not promises. We’re not good for credit anymore. Don’t you understand?”
    He had the demeanour of the patriarch. At that moment he might have been his father. Michele Arcangelo walked over to one of the cabinets and took out the most precious item left. It was a sixteenth-century water bowl in the form of a galley, a beautiful piece, the hull of the vessel in clear glass, the rigging in blue. On its side was the seal of the Tre Mori furnace, a guarantee that it would fetch a good price anywhere. They’d owned it forever, or so it seemed to her. Angelo, in particular, had adored the work, which was why it had remained unsold thus far.
    Michele turned the precious object in his hand, admiring it with one sharp, professional eye.
    “Then bury him with this,” he said, with not a trace of emotion.
     
8
     
    I T ONLY TOOK A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO HEAR RANDAZZO’S story. After that, the three cops from Rome looked at each other and wondered what they’d done to deserve this one. Venice had police aplenty. Any of the locals could have taken on the case, done what the miserable commissario wanted, signed off the report, then returned to guiding tourists back to their cruise ships. There was, Costa knew, some reason why Randazzo had picked three temporary strangers in the little Questura in Castello for this job. He wondered whether they were going to hear it. And one more thing bothered him. Hugo Massiter’s name was familiar somehow. He just couldn’t put a