Page 2 of The Venice Murders

‘It could have been Veneziano. I wouldn’t know. But it was a nasty confrontation.’

‘Yes,’ she said, feeling a little unsettled. ‘And strange, too. Franco appeared such an easy-going man. But it’s over, and I’m about to eat my first Italian ice cream before a very long sleep in that magnificent bed that’s waiting for us.’ She pondered the menu. ‘But how on earth am I to choose?Crema,amarena,vaniglia,fragola,pesca, and on and on…which one, Jack?’

‘Cioccolatoandcrema,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Made for you!’

It wasn’t until the next morning that the quarrel they’d witnessed was recalled. After a leisurely breakfast on the Cipriani terrace overlooking the lagoon, they again took the hotel’s complimentary ferry across the Giudecca Canal to St Mark’s Square, and spent most of the morning wandering, stopping only for Flora to browse one or two of the gift shops they saw on the way. Walking was the thing to do. All the guidebooks Flora had read had been adamant. Just walk, they’d advised: along narrow paths, over small bridges, in and out of piazzas. Lose yourself in the atmosphere; in fact, lose yourself quite literally. That would have been easy enough, she thought, but thanks to Jack’s map reading, they arrived at the Accademia Gallery as they’d intended, only to decide that it was too beautiful a day to spend indoors.

Now, elbows resting on the plain wood of the Accademia Bridge, an appealing counterpoint to the marble splendours all around, Flora looked along the glinting waters of the Grand Canal. On one side, the dome of Santa Maria della Salute and on the other a quieter bend of the canal which would lead eventually to the Rialto Bridge.

‘Shall we keep walking, or is it time to try some lunchtime pasta?’ she asked, holding her face up to the sun. Freckles were already making themselves at home, first on the bridge of her nose and later, she knew, they would sprinkle her cheekbones.

Jack came to a halt, appearing to weigh the options. ‘My stomach is definitely suggesting pasta, and my legs are saying they’ve had enough, so let’s find a café – there’ll be plenty on our way back to St Mark’s.’

Arm in arm, they sauntered off the bridge, Jack stopping to buy a newspaper from one of the local sellers they passed. ‘Testing my Italian,’ he explained.

‘And, of course, that’s just what you need on a honeymoon!’ She gave him a playful nudge, catching hold of the paper as he was tucking it under his arm. ‘This photograph on the front page.’ She opened the newspaper fully. ‘Isn’t that…isn’t that Franco Massi?’

Jack stopped, spreading the paper wide and fumbled for his reading glasses. Once he had them perched on his nose, he peered down at the image, frowning heavily. ‘You’re right. It is him. Oh…oh…!’ Abruptly, he folded the newspaper in half and went once more to tuck it beneath his arm.

‘What?’ she asked, half-impatient, half-concerned.

‘He’s…he’s dead,’ Jack said reluctantly.

‘He can’t be.’

Even more reluctantly, he unfolded the paper again and showed it to her. ‘The report says that a man was found in the Grand Canal early this morning, a little way from the Rialto – by a worker at the market – and has subsequently been identified. Hence the picture, I imagine.’

‘Are you reading it right?’

‘I know my Italian is poor, but I can read that. It’s there in black and white.’ His fingers gave the newspaper a sharp rap.

‘He wasn’t at reception this morning, was he?’ she said slowly. ‘I imagined it must be his day off, but…’

Flora fell silent for a moment, adjusting the straps of her sundress several times as though it would help her to think. ‘Franco was in such a temper last night when he stormed off, I wonder…do you think he could have been walking blind, not watching where he was going, then tripped and fell into the canal?’

Even as she voiced the explanation, it felt limp. Jack, however, seemed keen to agree. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘I guess people fall into canals every day.’

To Flora’s ears, he sounded hopeful, and she knew why. He’d want nothing to disturb what should be a perfect holiday. It didn’t stop him, though, from returning to read the article, his eyes now travelling down the paper. ‘There’s a sly comment here from the journalist. Not actually accusing the dead man of being a drunkard, but suggesting he wasn’t averse to a drink.’

‘Massi wasn’t drunk,’ she objected.

‘Not when we saw him, but later? In an alcoholic haze, it wouldn’t be difficult to come a cropper in that maze of alleyways and end up in a canal.’

Flora felt the niggle, a lack of conviction. ‘Unless it wasn’t an accident.’

Jack lowered the paper and stared at her. ‘No!’ he said at last. ‘Definitely no! We are not going there, Flora. This is our honeymoon. Massi’s death is being treated as an accident by the authorities and that’s how it should stay.’

‘Of course it should,’ she said airily.

Side by side, they strolled in silence along the narrow alleyway and into a large open square, home to several cafés.

‘Shall we find a table here?’ he asked.

Eating, though, no longer felt so important to Flora and instead of answering his question, she said quietly, ‘I don’t think we should forget how many times we’ve encountered so-called “accidents” – in Abbeymead and beyond – which in the end have turned out not to be so accidental.’

‘Flora!’ he pleaded.

She gave a little shrug. ‘OK. If you insist, it’s an accident.’ She took his arm again and hugged him close. ‘You’re probably right. It was a different situation when it was our own village involved and people who were close to us. In any case, Venice is too wonderful to be sidetracked.’

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