Surian looked at Patrick keenly.
‘Vaffianculo!’ he swore, his manner changing abruptly. ‘I don’t trust anyone, least of all an American. You fuckers have air bases all over this country, all over Europe. You pull the strings and
we dance. And if there’s a war, we’ll do the dying while you watch. So please don’t ask me to trust you.’
‘Claudio, please ... he’s trying to help me,’ Makonnen pleaded, trying to pacify his friend.
‘Sure he is. And from what you told me, he needs a little help himself. But before I start helping strangers - and I include you in that, Assefa - I want to know what’s going on.’ Pausing, he reached into his shirt pocket to draw out a tin of tobacco and some Rizla papers. He began to roll a cigarette, carefully teasing the strands of tobacco onto the thin sheet.
What are you?’ he asked. ‘CIA?’
‘This is private,’ Patrick argued.
‘Nothing’s private to the CIA. Go and ask for my file, if you haven’t done so already. See how private life is here.’
‘This isn’t a CIA matter,’ Patrick insisted. ‘Except ...’
There was a querulous shout from an adjoining room.
‘Claudio! Claudio! Corri qui, sbrigati!’
Surian excused himself and went through a door on his left. Patrick heard the sound of a raised voice behind the thin partition.
‘Con chi stai parlando, Claudio? Che e questa gente? Ti ho detto che non voglio amici tuoi a casa mia!’
Then Surian’s voice, abruptly gentle again, patience in every syllable, placating, pacifying.
‘Nessuno, papa. Solo vecchi amici - se ne vanno subito. It’s no one, father. Just some old friends. They’ll be gone soon.’
A minute later, the door opened and Surian returned. He took his seat once more without a word and finished rolling his cigarette. He replaced the tin in his pocket and took out a box of matches.
‘Do you mean to harm Migliau?’ Surian asked. He lit the thin cigarette and raised it to his lips.
Patrick hesitated.
‘It’s nothing to me if you do,’ Surian said, blowing a ribbon of acrid smoke into the air. ‘Perhaps you would be doing some people a favour if you ... put him out of the way.’
‘I don’t want to kill him. I just want him to answer some questions, that’s all.’
‘And you think he will answer you?’
Patrick shrugged.
‘Perhaps I might have to be a little rough with him.’
Surian smiled sardonically.
‘I’m sure. Well ...’ He pulled on his cigarette. ‘I wish you luck.’
‘You aren’t going to help?’
‘I didn’t say that. Yes, I’ll help if I can. Migliau’s bad news. A lot of people would like to see him out of action. There’s just one problem.’
What’s that?’
Surian stubbed the last of his cigarette out on the edge of his stool.
‘I made some enquiries after Assefa left this morning. A friend of mine works in the local office of the party newspaper, l’Unita. He was a little surprised when I told him I wanted information on Cardinal Migliau. What do you think he told me?’
Patrick said nothing.
‘Early this morning, his best contact in the Carabinieri was in touch. Nobody is supposed to know, but it seems that Cardinal Migliau has been missing for three days. He was last seen going to his bedroom in the Palazzo Patriarcale on Monday. On Tuesday morning, his servant found the room empty. The church authorities waited twenty-four hours for a ransom note, then contacted the Carabinieri yesterday. A GIS squad arrived in Venice yesterday evening from Lavarno. Now, signore, suppose you tell me just what’s going on?’
TWENTY-NINE
It was dark by the time they left. The rain had stopped, but the atmosphere still held a muggy dampness, through which a nagging chill crept like neuralgia through bone. Patrick walked with Makonnen and Surian as far as the Rio Terra San Leonardo, where they parted company. The priest and his friend continued along the main street to the Lista di Spagna, where Surian had arranged to meet the reporter from l’Unita in a cafe.
Patrick headed down to Santa Marcuola, where he took the water-bus across to the opposite bank, disembarking at San Stae. From there he plunged into a maze of narrowing lanes and alleyways, losing himself in their bewildering complexity. Yet he was never really lost. Each time he took a wrong turning, it came right in the end. He was guided by a directional instinct he had picked up during the two summers and single winter he had spent in Venice with Francesca.
Little had altered since then. Shops had changed hands, street lights stood where none had been before, a few buildings had received fresh coats of paint. But the configuration of passages and bridges was just as he remembered it.
Deeper and deeper he sank into the skein of alleys and canals, twisting and turning, yet always heading in the general direction of the Frari. It was not late, but the streets were nearly deserted. He passed a small pasticceria, where a group of men stood drinking coffee and talking in low voices at the counter. A scrawny cat ran across his path, darting from one doorway to the next. Patrick paused on the next bridge to take his bearings.
Surian’s news had rattled him. He had managed to convince the mask-maker that he knew nothing about Migliau’s disappearance. But he could not rid himself of the nagging thought that there was a connection between it and the recent events in which he himself had been involved. Had Migliau been kidnapped? Certainly, that seemed more probable than that the cardinal should have taken flight simply because Patrick had uncovered some photographs in Dublin.
There was, however, a third possibility: that Migliau’s disappearance was in some way connected with Passover. If that was true, it could mean that fear of exposure had panicked the Brotherhood into bringing the date forward. For all Patrick knew, Passover could be starting at this very moment.
He walked on, wetting his feet from time to time in unseen puddles. People were at home, watching television, eating. He felt hungry, but he wanted to get this over before it grew much later. The calle through which he was walking seemed familiar. The house was not far now. But the closer he got, the slower his steps became. He looked round nervously, as though expecting to see Francesca tailing him. These were her streets. If her ghost walked anywhere, it walked here.
The house faced onto the Rio delle Meneghette, but the land entrance was at the end of the Calle Molin. The Contarinis had bought the palazzo in 1740, when the last of the Grimani-Calerghis died without issue. It was by no means the largest or the finest of the many palazzi in which different branches of the Contarinis had lived over the centuries. But it was the last of them and, in some ways, the closest to the family’s heart - the closest, even, to the secret they had kept alive for generation after generation.
Seen from the back or the side, like all Venetian mansions, it was unprepossessing. An old street lamp cast a baleful glow over a low wall from which the plaster had fallen away. Behind the wall, Patrick knew, there lay a courtyard, and beyond that the rear of the palazzo itself lay draped in a cloak of shadows. Here, leading onto the street, was a rickety door from which the paint had peeled, exposing the wood beneath. A corroded knocker shaped like a Moor’s head hung crookedly in its centre.
Patrick grasped the knocker tightly and banged several times. Hollow echoes rang along the calle. Footsteps sounded further back, then a door closed with a loud crash. But in the Palazzo Contarini, all was silent and dark. He raised the knocker and banged again, three times. A church bell rang in the distance, as though in mockery.
All at once he heard the sound of bolts being drawn deep within, and a door opening, and slow feet limping across the flagged courtyard. He pictured it, its blue and black and yellow tiles worn down with age, the ancient well-head carved with lions and a leaping unicorn. The footsteps reached the outer door and stopped.
‘Chi e? Che diavolo volete a quest’ ora?!’ The voice was that of an old woman, thin and petulant, speaking in the lugubrious accent of the Veneto.
‘My name is Canavan. I want to see Alessandro Contarini. I want to speak with him.’
‘Allessandro Contarini e morto. Dead! Please go away!’
