coming and going in the stillness.
‘Over five years passed before Andrea returned. He had seen with his own eyes what Pietro had only heard about. And he had met the keepers of his father’s secret. In the few years that remained to him - for he died six years later of the plague - he confided in members of his family and a few, carefully-chosen friends.
‘That, Signor Canavan, was the beginning of our rise to power. Pietro’s secret was, indeed, more precious than silks or spices.’
Contarini paused.
‘But power has a price,’ he resumed. ‘A man cannot have power and riches, yet possess his own soul. No more a family. The Contarinis, the Barbaros, the Grimanis, the Sagredos ... all the noble houses who came to share our secret - all paid their price. Our families, our private affections, our faith, even our souls ... all for the sake of a truth the multitude could neither understand nor tolerate.’
He fell silent, folding his sallow hands together like the wings of a giant, broken butterfly. A tremor passed through them and grew still. Outside, the lapping of water against stone was the only sound.
‘How,’ Patrick asked, ‘does this explain Francesca? Her death, her being alive?’
Contarini sighed. It was a deep sigh, almost a moan.
‘Don’t you see? Francesca was my price. Her happiness was the sacrifice I had to make. And you were her sacrifice - all she had, all she wanted.’
‘For this?’ Patrick rose angrily, gesturing violently at the crumbling damp-stained walls, the broken and rotting furniture.
The count shook his head. The long white hair had fallen across his face like a veil.
‘No,’ he said. His voice had changed in timbre, acquiring vigour from some hidden reserve. He raised a hand and pointed, jabbing again and again at the great fresco.
‘For that, you fool! For that!’
THIRTY-ONE
Patrick left the palazzo in a daze. Contarini’s anger had subsided into a fit of coughing, and Maria had hurried in to tend him and chase his visitor away. He had left quickly, chased by shadows, harried by ghosts, out into the awful night.
The crippled dog still lay crouched in its corner, shivering with cold. Patrick felt torn between disgust and pity. He wanted to throw stones at it or break its neck. Its misery appalled and frustrated him: to drive it away or put it to sleep were the only options he could stomach. But he did neither. He lacked both courage and conviction.
Instead, he turned his back on the dog and the palace of the Contarinis, and walked quickly out of the calle. A freezing mist had moved in off the Adriatic and crept across the city while Patrick talked with Contarini. It had worked its way slowly along the streets, and now lay flat on the surface of the canals, obscuring the rounded backs of bridges and drifting into every calle, fondamenta and rugetta. Like wisps of white smoke, its tendrils wandered through the sleeping streets, curling about the infrequent street-lamps, blurring and softening what little light there was. In archways and sottoporticos, thick masses of it lay like predators, waiting for the unwary.
Patrick turned his collar up against the chill air. In his agitation, he had taken a wrong turning shortly after leaving the palazzo. Now the mist was playing with him, teasing him, leading him further and further astray. His footsteps echoed between the close-packed buildings on either side -a desolate sound that only emphasized how alone he was in this half-deserted city.
He picked up speed, but the further he walked the less familiar his surroundings seemed. Reason told him to knock on the first door he came to and ask the way. But it was after midnight, and the bolted doors and shuttered windows he passed held out no prospect of a warm welcome.
After a while, he came to a deserted square. He found the name on a blue and white plate high up on one corner: Campo dei Carmini. But it meant nothing to him. Along one side of the little square, the dark facade of a baroque church loomed menacingly out of the mist. Its troubled pillars and sinister windows reminded him of the tombs on San Michele, as though the church had been constructed for the dead and not the living.
Leaving the square, he paused to read the name of the street he had just entered. As he did so, he heard a sound behind him. It had resembled a foot scraping against stone. And it had not been an echo.
Pressing himself against the side wall of the church, he listened carefully for the sound to be repeated. He could not be certain, but he thought it had come from the square. Contarini had said that someone had been asking questions about him. Was there someone out there now, following him?
He moved on, walking more slowly now, straining to distinguish between his own footsteps and the echoes they raised, listening for the tell-tale sound of someone tailing him. If he could lead his shadow on, then double back and move in from behind, he might be able to collar him. But the mist and his own disorientation limited his freedom to act.
A narrow alleyway opened out onto a bridge. In a window opposite, a light was burning. He crossed the bridge, then halted, waiting. The silence was thick and oppressive: he wanted to call out, to tear it to pieces without remorse. It came again: a single scrape in the alleyway. Through an arch, he caught sight of another canal: the passage ran down to the water and, as far as Patrick could see, ended there. If he could trick his pursuer into heading that way, he might be able to trap him.
He headed slowly down the passage. ‘Don’t lose me now, for God’s sake,’ he whispered. The mist thinned out a little here, but he had to step carefully lest he mistake the edge of the bank and plunge into the water. His guess turned out to be correct: the passage ended at the water, and there was no path either to right or left.
Intuition had suggested that someone would have left a boat tied up here, otherwise there would have been little point to the small landing area at the end of the passage. Through the mist, he could make out the shape of a small sandolo covered in a heavy tarpaulin. He pulled the boat nearer with the painter and slipped over the side, almost losing his footing on the slippery cloth.
He crouched down in the shallow vessel, thankful for the mist, just able to see the end of the passageway over the edge of the bank. And there, at last, an unmistakable footstep! He felt tension build in his stomach and all through his muscles.
A shadow moved. Patrick held himself ready to spring. Everything depended on how close his pursuer came to the edge: far enough, and he might be able to grab him and pull him over. At least he had the element of surprise. The mist parted and the shadow became a dark figure. Patrick held his breath. ‘Come closer, damn you! To the edge. Come on!’ The figure hesitated, frightened perhaps that he might lose his footing in the mist and fall. Patrick felt the sandolo rock uneasily beneath him: it made a poor platform from which to launch himself at his pursuer.
The figure paused, then turned abruptly and began to walk back along the sottoportico. Patrick flexed his legs and jumped onto the bank, falling on his knees. As he landed, he saw the figure look round and catch sight of him. He scrambled to his feet in time to see his pursuer stumble into the mist.
‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘I want to speak to you!’
There was a sound of running footsteps. Patrick broke into a trot. He reached the street again just in time to see the mist fold round a moving shadow. Footsteps rang out like bullets in the darkness. Patrick set off in pursuit, following the sound.
He ran breathless through a maze of alleyways, across bridges, along narrow embankments, the sound of footsteps luring him on, deeper and deeper into the swirling mist. Sometimes he thought he had lost his quarry: he would take a false turn and all but lose the scampering footsteps, then suddenly he would come out along a different passage and hear them ahead of him once more. Twice he caught sight of the running figure ahead of him, a dark blur in the mist.
Out of breath, he stopped on a little bridge to catch his wind. Leaning against the metal balustrade, he looked up and caught sight of someone on a second bridge, just yards away. The mist parted momentarily, giving him a clearer look. His head felt light. He could feel the blood pounding in his temples, his heart pumping wildly in his chest, making him giddy. Had he been mistaken? He looked again, but the mist had swept back. There was no one on the other bridge.
‘Francesca!’ he called. ‘Francesca, fermati!’
Running footsteps sounded on the riva just beyond
the bridge where the figure had been standing. Patrick felt a new energy sweep through him. He dashed off the bridge, almost falling down a short flight of steps in his haste.
