Page 21 of The Venice Murders

It sounded simple. It always did with Flora, and usually turned out to be anything but, while the question of their honeymoon and how they should spend it remained unresolved. For months, they’d been planning their trip to Venice: reading books, deciding where they’d visit, anticipating everything about this glorious holiday – the flights, the hotel, the city. It mattered hugely and yet, since arriving, they’d been faced with a possible murder, a stolen painting, a missing woman and now, apparently, the imminent arrival of a friend from home. Every day should have been one of pure enjoyment, so how had they landed themselves in this mess?

It wasn’t all Flora’s fault. She hadn’t asked Count Falconi to call on them. Hadn’t asked for his mother’s visit either, Jack thought darkly, and she hadn’t encouraged Sally to make the trip. All she’d really done was raise the suspicion that Franco Massi had been deliberately killed and linked it, as only she could, with the troubles suffered by Father Renzi. It had been sufficient, though, to plunge them into a new adventure which, knowing Flora, wouldn’t end until she got to the truth.

He had no wish to make a second visit to La Zucca. As far as he could see, it would help little and could stir up even more trouble. Yet there was no obvious objection he could raise to eating there again. Their previous meal had been well-cooked, delicious even, and tomorrow should be an evening to look forward to. Except for the fact that his wife intended to interrogate its owner, and the owner was unlikely to respond happily. If Jack refused point-blank to go there, he knew Flora well enough to realise she would find a way to go by herself. And that was something he most definitely didn’t want.

A faint hope during the night that La Zucca might be closed on a Monday, since many of the restaurants in Venice took a break that day, had disappeared by morning when one of the receptionists on duty assured him that, on the contrary, La Zucca was so popular that it now opened six days a week.

It seemed that Jack must think again. He needed a plan, he told himself. Any plan. Perhaps if he kept Flora busy today, exceptionally busy, she might be too tired by the evening to travel back to the city and would be willing to settle for a meal on the island. It was even possible that by then she might have had second thoughts over confronting the restaurant owner in his den. Or she’d thought of other avenues to explore – with Flora, you never knew.

With this idea in mind, sketchy as it was, he suggested that after breakfast they take the hotel boat to St Mark’s and saunter first along the Riva degli Schiavoni and from there into Castello, a quarter of Venice they hadn’t yet explored.

‘We could make for the Arsenale first, but call at the Giardini on the way. We never did get to the café.’ He hoped he sounded suitably casual.

The happy smile she gave in response made him feel a tad guilty, but Jack was on a mission – to deflect her. It was for her own good, he argued silently, and that’s what was most important.

‘I’d love to do the walk,’ she said, her enthusiasm increasing his guilt. ‘Let’s go early. Venice in the cool of the morning will be bliss and, once it’s too hot, there are masses of cafés or bars we can shelter in.’

Within an hour of their breakfast coffee, they were turning in through the iron gates of the Giardini and following the gravel pathway to where Jack was sure they would find the café.

Flora stopped to survey the gardens on either side. ‘The grass is already quite burnt. Almost brown. Not at all like Sussex.’

‘And getting more unlike by the day. It will be a whole lot browner by the end of the summer. Literally, dying for rain. I guess that’s when the floods arrive, the dreadedacqua alta.’

‘High water?’ she ventured. ‘See, I shall soon be fluent!’

‘High water,’ he agreed, laughing.‘When the tide rises and the lagoon sweeps in.But not until autumn – so we should be safe!’

They had turned a corner in the path and come to a small, red-roofed building standing to one side, its shutters down and surrounded by a general air of desertion.

‘The café is closed. How disappointing.’

‘We’ll eat there one day,’ she promised. ‘And, in any case, it’s far too early for lunch. Even for you.’

At least it meant they would keep walking, Jack thought. Out on to the Riva again, the sun now higher in the sky as they strolled towards the Arsenale, crossing over the bridge into its main square. Despite the increasing warmth, Flora’s energy, he noted gloomily, seemed undiminished.

He glanced around the open square. ‘This place looks as though it’s crumbling. How sad. Years of disuse and neglect, I guess. It deserves better.’

‘Was it once an army barracks, do you know?’

‘Something close, but it was the Venice navy who were here – their shipyards and armouries. This was their base when the Republic controlled a huge part of the Mediterranean.’

‘There’s not much sign of that now.’ Flora turned in a circle. ‘Except for those lions. The lions are pretty impressive.’ The two marble beasts, one lying, one sitting, flanked an enormous arch, its iron gate firmly closed against them.

‘Not much to see, though. Come on, let’s move. The sea air is giving me an appetite. Shall we go back over the bridge and look for a café?’

‘I’d like to walk on, if that’s OK with you. For a while, at least. I’m enjoying exploring.’ Jack’s spirits sank lower. The trip to La Zucca hadn’t gone away.

‘What’s that island?’ she asked sometime later, stopping to point across the lagoon.

They had passed the Giovanni and Paolo hospital and Flora was looking across at an expanse of green.

‘It’s San Michele, the cemetery. Nicely situated directly opposite the hospital,’ he said wryly.

She lifted a hand to shield her eyes. ‘I think I can make out a mausoleum and some small domes and maybe a few avenging angels. It looks an interesting place. I’d love to take a boat trip there.’

‘This afternoon?’ he asked eagerly.

‘Maybe another day. Today, I think, we should keep walking – it’s hot but nowhere near as hot as it has been.’

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