4.40 p.m.
Caroline pays for her drinks, stands; she’s actually a little drunk now, enjoying feeling a little drunk now. She should probably eat, will get back to the hotel, find her way through these insane streets and canals. She’ll stop on the way and buy something to eat from one of those shops that sell fat-filled breads to tourists hungry from sight-seeing, something with cheese and aubergine and courgette and salami. Antipasti in bread, that’s what Pete calls it, disapproving. He likes long Italian meals, each course an adventure in itself, doesn’t think the Venetians should accommodate tourist desires, doesn’t think of himself as a tourist at all. Caroline probably has three hours before she needs to be ready for Pete, two to be on the safe side. She will make her way back slowly, eat, sober up, wash and dress and be ready for the surprise he has been unready for. All will be well.
5 p.m.
Caroline has found her way back to the Grand Canal. She didn’t realize she’d come so far; there are signs for the Ghetto back behind her. She and Pete came here the first time they were in Venice together. It was sad, and lovely, to see the old synagogue, to see where the word came from, and then Pete found an amazing restaurant that night, quite close to the Ghetto, and they’d eaten so well, so happily. When they walked out into the night she was amazed it was so late, and so very quiet, so different from other parts of the city, busy until late at night. It’s quiet here now, too, quieter anyway than back where she thought she’d been heading, to the Rialto. She heads east again, a falling sun behind her, in and out. Unable to walk directly alongside the Grand Canal here, she tries to keep the sun behind her, even when she has to turn north again. Eventually there are more people, and signs, and a vaporetto stop, and Caroline buys her ticket, boards it, the beginning of a headache coming with sunset.
Caroline gets off at San Toma, between the Rialto and Accademia, it must be close to the hotel. She wishes she’d thought to bring a map, to ask the man at Reception for a map, but she didn’t. At home Caroline never gets lost, prides herself on knowing her way round London, even the farthest reaches, or the most winding parts down by Greenwich and Canary Wharf, prides herself on always knowing where the water is. Here she is where the water is, always. Her compass is waterlogged. She will wander and she will find it. She remembers the street name, the canal name, she will find it.
5.10 p.m.
Caroline has a feeling she is close. She is walking alongside a narrow canal, the footpath here is narrow too. She is behind two men, one older, greyer than the other. They have Australian or New Zealand accents, she can’t tell the difference, and they’re laughing about a girl they both know. You should have seen her face, one says. Mate, I don’t need to see her face, I can see your face! And they laugh and the greyer one slaps the other one on the back and they stop for a moment. One is lighting a cigarette and Caroline needs to get past them. She says, excuse me, excuse me, can I get past here? They shuffle to the side, she hears the match strike, the flare of warm light, and Caroline turns to thank the two men. She recognizes one of them. The older one, with greying hair, is the man from the hotel’s Reception. She knows for sure he is from the hotel and she knows this because he sees her, sees her looking, and nudges his friend and they both look up. Shit! the older one says. And he turns away, his head to the wall, but it’s too late and Caroline wants to throw up again, wants to grab him and ask what the fuck is going on, wants to reach out to the man, but her legs don’t want that at all, her legs and her gut are terrified, and she runs instead, runs away from them, rushing on to where she thinks the hotel is. Her head doesn’t want to go to the hotel at all, it isn’t safe, can’t be safe, but her legs and gut propel her. Now pushing past a young couple, Caroline shoves them both out of her way. They are English and yell at her in surprise, yell that she should be careful, there’s no need for that, what’s her problem?
Caroline doesn’t know what her problem is. And then she does. Running on, slowing, walking now, breath catching, a stitch in her side, walking towards the hotel anyway, sure she knows these streets now, sure she knows where she is… Caroline does know what her problem is. She knows she hasn’t been able to believe those messages from Pete, not really, knows Pete would never let her down like this, knows he would have been at the airport, in the hotel, would have been waiting. And now she stops, cold, sick to her stomach and bile rising again in her throat. Because she knows, actually, that Pete doesn’t really do surprises, that while they have their games, Pete has never really done surprises, that the real surprise she came home to on Friday evening was that it was so out of character for Pete. So in character for John.
5.40 p.m.
The sun is still lighting the sky, but it’s darker and cooler in the narrow street leading to the hotel. On the other side of the small canal just here, beneath a shop awning, standing with his back to her, Caroline sees a man texting. She sees the man and she is sure she knows who he is, knows the back of him. The man stops texting, watches his phone’s screen. A few seconds later her own phone beeps. A text comes through, from Pete’s phone. I’m here. Landed. Won’t be long. Can’t wait to see you. It’s been way too long.
The man turns; he doesn’t see Caroline looking. It’s John, Caroline is sure it is John. He looks in through the window of the shop, waves, walks on, away down the little walkway alongside the canal, down to a bridge that will bring him back to this side of the canal, where the hotel is.
The hotel has her bag and her things and her passport and Caroline wants nothing more than to run from here, run from this place, but her phone is almost out of battery and the charger is in her room and her stuff is in the room, and maybe, maybe she is as paranoid as John always said, maybe she’s just exhausted and maybe it will be all right, but whatever it will be she needs to charge her phone and she needs to get her things and so she runs back down the street to the hotel and opens the front door and lets herself in.
5.50 p.m.
There is no one in Reception, just as there was no one earlier. She runs upstairs and into the sitting room of the suite, slamming the door behind her, locking it. Caroline looks around. She takes in the room properly, sees that while it is a beautiful room, cool and clean, lovely lines, it is missing some of those things even the finest hotel rooms must have. The sign on the wall about emergency exits. The list by the telephone of charges, useful numbers to call. The explanation in five different languages of how to work the TV and satellite. She remembers there were no signs downstairs either. Nothing on the reception desk that was, after all, just a counter really, a plain counter, with nothing on it, no message about breakfast or checkout, no handy pile of maps and leaflets for unprepared tourists. Caroline realizes she has seen no other guests. The only people she has seen are the chambermaid and the man behind the desk. And that she did see them when she went out today and they were speaking English, she wasn’t mistaken. Caroline has let herself believe. And now she lets herself understand. She walks over to the locked door; it opens. Behind it is a kitchen. A normal, elegant, newly fitted kitchen. This is not a hotel room. It is an apartment.
Her phone beeps. She doesn’t want to look. Can’t stop herself looking.
I’m in the bedroom. Waiting.
And even though she doesn’t want to go, and even though her gut and legs are trying to hold her back, Caroline overrules them this time and walks herself to the bedroom door.
She opens the door.
Pete is on the bed. And a lot of blood. Pete’s blood, on the bed, bloody Pete.