The Venice Conspiracy by Jon Trace Read Free Book Online Page A

for him and the starched white napkin laid on his lap, he can tell that the view is magnificent and the meal is certain to be memorable. ‘This is enormously generous of you. Really, I’m horribly ashamed. If I’d known how expensive Venice is, I probably wouldn’t have come.’
    ‘That really would have been shameful.’ She studies his face and sees he’s tense and awkward. ‘Listen, I was going to eat here anyway. Every travel writer is compelled to eat somewhere cheap and somewhere as ridiculously expensive as the Grand Canal, so I’m simply putting you down as research.’
    ‘“Research”? I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.’
    His charm earns him a long sparkle of her flawless teeth. ‘In return, you have to tell me your story. Who you are, why you’re here, what you like and don’t like about Venice - that’s the kind of stuff I have to find out when I research fellow travellers.’
    ‘Okay,’ says Tom, ‘you have a deal.’ The waiter appears juggling two menus, a wine list, olives and a silver basket of bread. ‘But,’ adds Tom, ‘it won’t be the kind of story you’re going to want to write.’

CHAPTER 12
    A blue-and-white police boat speeds Vito and Valentina to the mortuary at the Ospedale San Lazzaro. The sun is baking hot and the canal smells of burned cabbage. Behind them, a white wake froths on chocolate-brown water as twin outboards growl down the canals. It reminds Valentina of the iced cappuccino she promised herself an hour ago.
    They disembark at the city hospital, alongside a fleet of water ambulances knocking gently against ancient wooden posts. Paramedics in sunglasses sit on stone steps near the quay, Day-glo orange uniforms rolled down to their waists, smoking and chatting lazily. The calm before the storm.
    ‘Hey!’ The shout comes from Valentina’s cousin, Antonio Pavarotti, arriving on foot from the opposite direction. ‘Wait!’
    He’s breathless as he catches up. Only after they’ve slipped into the shady labyrinth of the Ospedale does he find his normal voice. ‘The divers have found nothing. Short of dredging the canal, there’s no more we can do.’
    ‘Nothing?’ queries Vito, who has spent much of his career lecturing officers on the subject ‘there is no such thing as nothing - if there ever was nothing, then it really would mean something’.
    Antonio - who’s heard the lecture several times - corrects himself: ‘Only a pair of fake Gucci shades, probably from one of the stalls near the Rialto, a sodden mound of litter dropped by damned tourists, and a broken Swatch watch that looks like it belonged to a child.’
    Vito shakes his head. The boy will never learn. ‘They’re all something, not nothing. Check them. Show them to the market traders, jewellers, see if we strike lucky.’
    The major leads them towards the block at the back of the hospital marked Anatomia Patalogica, Laboratorio Alalisi, Mortuarie. ‘Forensics get anything?’
    ‘There are paint marks against the wall where Monica was tied. They look new. Could be from the craft that he carried her on. They’re black, though, the colour of every damned gondola in Venice.’
    ‘Samples already gone to the labs?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Well done, Antonio. We’ll be sorry to lose you. When do you start your new job?’
    ‘Tomorrow, Major.’ He looks worried for a second. ‘Do you wish me to ask the unit commander to find someone else?’
    Touched by his loyalty, Vito says, ‘No, no. I know how much you enjoy undercover. We’ll cope without you, won’t we, Valentina?’
    She smiles. ‘Somehow. I don’t know how, but we’ll struggle through.’
    ‘They’re posting you out to that hippy commune, aren’t they?’ asks Carvalho rhetorically. ‘Months of sex. Drugs. Rock’n’roll and a mad millionaire who thinks he’s creating a revolution.’
    Antonio grins. ‘It’s tough work, but someone has to do it.’
    Valentina delivers him a playful punch in the arm,