'They would have got away with it, only the shockwave was far too intense to have been produced by a regular gas cylinder. It tore most of the boat into tiny fragments.'
Vito sees flashes of Antonio at the helm. Flashes of the kid's parents when he broke the news to them. Flashes of Valentina in his office – too proud and too brave to break down and cry in front of him. 'I never expected this. What the hell was he working on? Some Mafia or Camorra job?'
Castelli shakes his head. 'No, not at all. Or at least, we didn't think there were mob connections.' He scans the room before he continues. 'It was a low-level undercover job. A fishing expedition. You've heard of the commune on Isola Mario?'
Vito rocks his head hesitantly.
'It's run by the billionaire Mario Fabianelli.'
Vito half remembers: 'The internet whiz-kid – made a fortune and then stuck most of it up his nose?'
'That's the one.'
'The island's named after him, isn't it?'
'It is. Must be nice to be so rich you can afford an island. Anyway, too much coke must have gone to his head, because for the past year he's turned it into a free-love commune he calls Heaven – though actually he doesn't spell it the normal way. It's alphanumeric – the Es are replaced by 3s and there's no A.'
Vito wrinkles up his face in confusion.
'H-3-V-3-N. Think of U2 – it's like he's trying to create a brand. The place even has its own website selling poems, paintings, pottery and jewellery made by the junk-heads.'
Vito wipes coffee from his lips with a paper napkin. 'So, this is where Antonio was working? Digging around the hippies to see what drugs they were using on Mario's Fantasy Island?'
Castelli nods. 'We had a tip that there was a lot of gear there. Shipments of the stuff. Not just hash, but good quantities of E, maybe coke and even some H. Given the abuse record of the owner, we thought it worth a prowl. I specifically asked for Antonio because he'd done so well on the undercover job at the hospital. He was a bright boy.'
'Was. He certainly was.' Vito drops his head. 'Had he found anything?'
'No. At least, not that he'd had a chance to report in.' They both fall silent for a minute. Vito knows what's on his colleague's mind – Valentina. Getting over a fatal accident takes a long time. Getting over murder takes a lifetime. 'I'd best go and tell her,' he says as he rises from his seat.
Castelli doesn't say anything, just pats him on the arm as he walks past.
CAPITOLO XXXIX
27 dicembre 1777 Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore Brother Tommaso Frascoli spends the day obsessing about the strange man he saw dropping things from the boat.
Throughout lectio divina his focus constantly wanders from his scripture studies.
What troubles him even more than being lied to is that he can't figure out where the boatman came from. Tommaso had been heading south and the stranger in the mist had come from the north. But to his knowledge there were only one or two islands within rowing distance, and he thought both were uninhabited.
Tommaso momentarily wonders if the man was an apparition. A spectre or demon of some sort, sent to challenge him. He quickly dismisses the notion, accepting – as the abbot repeatedly tells him – that he needs to avoid flights of fancy and egocentric ponderings.
The illegitimate child of a courtesan, all he knows about his family is what the abbot has told him. Both Tommaso and his sister were passed to the clergy soon after birth. She went into a nunnery, and he's been told that she ran away while still a novice. He does not know his father's name. His mother, Carmela Francesca Frascoli, had given the priests no verbal explanation, just what few soldi and denari she possessed, along with a note and small wooden box that she requested be handed to her child when he became a man. Tommaso has both items under his bed. He's never opened either of them.
It's the way he deals with his abandonment. By not thinking about such things, he can trick himself into believing the absence of a mother and father doesn't hurt. God has provided all the parental guidance he's ever needed.
Except lately. Lately he's been having doubts.
And sometimes, when the doubting becomes unbearable, it's rowing – not praying – that seems to be the only thing that takes the pain away. Rowing hard. Rowing and rowing until his lungs feel like bursting and the boat skims like a flat stone across the surface of the dark water.
Alone in his cell before evening prayers, Tommaso's heart is pumping as hard as any session in the monastery boat. And for good reason. Today is a special day.
It is his birthday.
His twenty-first.
A fitting time to face some personal demons.
He unwraps the tightly knotted string. Breaks the seal. Opens the box that his mother left for him and cannot believe his eyes.
CHAPTER 41
Present Day Palazzo Ducale, Venice A cool morning wind blows in from the Venetian lagoon, a stretch of water formed some seven thousand years ago when the Ice Age flooded the upper Adriatic coastal plain. Vito Carvalho stands by a gondolier station in the shadow of the Palazzo Ducale and stares out across the endless grey waves. He's thinking about what Umberto Castelli has just told him.
Murder.
Antonio Pavarotti's death was not an accident. He was murdered.
The young lieutenant's face comes to mind. Fresh and handsome. Always smiling. Attentive eyes, the type that women notice.
What a waste.
What a damned awful waste.
Vito finishes his cigarette, the second of the day, and walks towards his office. He goes slowly. He needs the time and air to think properly. His desk has been swamped with three murder cases – Monica Vidic and the two men recovered from the lagoon. Now he's got a fourth – Antonio. By way of consolation, he's got something else too – a tenuous lead, a straw to grasp at. Okay, so it's not much to go on, but what Castelli told him about Isola Mario is worth following up. Drugs are so often a factor in serious crimes.
Other things are troubling him too. He's badly short of manpower, and his staff are close to exhaustion. Castelli had already promised him two second lieutenants from his undercover division, but before he meets them, Vito has a more testing appointment. Bang on ten a.m., Valentina Morassi breezes into her boss's office, slim fingers holding a takeaway coffee. 'Buongiorno, I have your morning medicine, Major.'
'Grazie.' He takes the cardboard cup and waits for her to sit. Given everything that's happened lately, she looks amazing. Sure there's extra make-up to hide the puffiness beneath her eyes, but still, the girl has a strength that he can't help but admire. 'Did you hear from our ex-priest after the visit to the Salute?'
Valentina uncaps her coffee, blows away some steam. 'No, it's my first stop right after this.'
'Call him in. I need to speak to him here. I was watching his face yesterday – he saw something. When he looked at the blood smears, they seemed to mean something to him.'
Vito wants to carry on talking about other aspects of the case, to discuss the strange hippy commune at Isola Mario – anything rather than break the awful news to her. He looks down at his hands. There are nicotine stains between his fingers. It's a long time since he's seen that. He rubs at the yellow, then looks up and sees Valentina staring at him. Waiting for him. There's no putting it off any longer: 'I spoke to Castelli. The team investigating the explosion of Antonio's boat no longer think it was an accident…' He studies her face for shock. Not a trace. Only the questioning stare of a professional waiting for the rest of the story. 'Forensics found particles of plastic explosive among the wreckage.'
He watches Valentina draw breath. A slight tremble rocks her shoulders. 'I suppose you know he was working undercover on Isola Mario, the place owned by that weird internet billionaire.'