Veretti’s Dark Vengeance

‘Now I have to get back to Venice and go to Switzerland for a meeting tonight. Some clown has made a mess of an important set of figures and if I don’t sort it out it’ll get worse.’

‘Switzerland?’ she echoed, halting her dressing in her dismay. ‘For long?’

‘Certainly a few days. Maybe a week. But think what evildoings you can get up to when I’m gone. I’ll probably return to find you’ve put me out of business.’

‘Not at all,’ she said at once. ‘I fight fair. I’ll wait until you return, then I’ll put you out of business.’

He grinned and leaned over to drop a light kiss on her mouth. ‘I’m really going to hate being away from you. Especially now.’

She nodded. There was no need for words. They understood each other.

In a few minutes they were in the motor boat, heading back across the lagoon. Gradually the Piazza San Marco came into view, the bells ringing from its distinctive tower, and as they neared Salvatore slowed down the boat.

‘I’m in no hurry to get there,’ he explained. ‘Once we’ve landed we go back to being who we were.’

‘But when you come back…’ she ventured.

‘Yes, when I come back there’s a lot to be said. Until then-I’ll just tell you this; you’re the first person I’ve ever taken to the island.’ His voice became deeper, quieter. ‘And that makes me very glad. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘I understand.’

‘Then we understand each other,’ he said, slipping an arm about her shoulders and drawing her close.

It wasn’t a fierce or predatory kiss, but neither was it as gentle as the ones they’d exchanged on the island. He was telling her to remember how he could make her feel, how she could make him feel. He was telling her not to forget that he was coming back to claim her.

‘Someone will see us,’ she said, laughing through her delight.

‘How? We’re still out in the lagoon.’

But as if to prove him wrong a boat sped past so close that their own boat rocked with the waves, making them cling together.

‘We’d better get home,’ Salvatore said unsteadily.

He delivered her to the hotel, said a sedate goodbye and drove away without kissing her. Helena had expected nothing else. What was growing between them wasn’t for the eyes of strangers.

It was the time of year when glass makers set out their new collections. Helena surveyed the new pieces that Larezzo had produced, and knew she could be proud. But what she could not do was rest on her laurels.

‘We need a new oven,’ she said, ‘like the one Salvatore has.’

‘It’ll cost,’ Emilio warned her.

‘I know. I’ve posed for a few pictures but to raise that much I’m going to have to accept some serious assignments. But that will mean going back to England, at least for a while.’

‘And you don’t want to leave Venice,’ Emilio said knowingly.

‘I guess I don’t,’ she sighed. ‘But neither do I want to give in. I’m still fighting him-in one way.’

‘Even if not in another?’ Emilio said, grinning.

‘Well-just keep that to yourself. I’m not going to confuse the personal and professional.’

It was easy to say that now. What was between herself and Salvatore was something she couldn’t name, but it brought her happiness, and it was easy to believe that things would work out somehow.

That was before she picked up the newspaper, and everything changed.

She stared a long time at the huge colour picture, trying to understand its meaning, but resisting it too because the real meaning was terrible.

The paper had gone to town featuring the new lines of the glass factories. Today it was Perroni’s turn, and the spotlight was on a glass figure. It was beautiful, the most glorious piece Perroni had ever made, everyone said.

There was no detail, but the outlines were sculpted so skilfully that little was left to the imagination. The naked woman, created from glass that was almost clear but for a faint pearly tinge, stretched languorously back, her arms above her head so that the swell of her breasts was emphasised. Her face was featureless, but her hair flowed gloriously over her shoulders, and almost down to her waist.

Somehow the artist had caught her true nature, enticing, fiercely sexual, outrageously tempting, knowing her own allure, enjoying it.

The photographer had taken her from several angles, and every picture was there in the newspaper. Underneath the headline read, Helen of Troy.

The paper had made the most of the story, strongly hinting that it was no coincidence that Salvatore’s factory had produced this piece so closely following his association with the woman known as Helen of Troy.

The first Helen of Troy came down to us from history as the face that launched a thousand ships,

the writer burbled.

And the people of Venice have recently seen this very thing for themselves at the Festa della Sensa.

Advance orders for this daring work of art are said to top anything in Perroni’s previous collections, meaning that the factory’s fortunes are riding high again this year.

Helena read the piece through several times in dead silence. Then she took a long breath.

‘Fool!’ she breathed at last. ‘Is there a bigger fool in the world than me? So easy, so obvious, and I fell for it. All the time he’s been laughing-jeering at me-’

Now she too was laughing, shaken with bitter mirth that grew more violent until her whole body ached.

At last she calmed down and made her way slowly to a chair by the window, overlooking the water. She almost collapsed into it as though the strength had drained from her, and leaned back, her face stony.

Certain things came back to her, things that had been puzzling at the time but whose meaning was now brilliantly, horribly clear. Only the day before she’d bumped into Carla, apparently by chance, except that there’d been a mysterious significance in Carla’s manner. While babbling innocently she’d studied Helena’s face, as if searching for something. And her questions had been double-edged-did Helena know when Salvatore was returning to Venice? Had she heard about his line in glassware?

‘She was trying to find out if I knew,’ Helena mused. ‘She must have known-everyone must have known-and they’ve been watching me to see the moment when I realised.’

This was what Salvatore had done to her; not only used her for profit, but also made her the laughing stock of Venice.

When she was sure she had herself under perfect control she returned to the newspaper and read the story through from the start. It was cleverly written, suggesting only that Salvatore had been romantically inspired by her. There was no hint of the cold-blooded calculation that actually lay behind it.

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ she thought. ‘They might think it, but only I will say it, because I know it’s true.’

Cold-blooded. The words created a strange sensation in her, calling back the times when he’d been anything but cold, when the heat of his touch had inspired an even more fervent heat inside her, so that she had found a passion she’d never before known existed.

After years of being a figure of ice she’d discovered herself to be a deeply sexual woman, and all because a deceitful man had played her for a sucker. He’d warned her, but she’d refused to believe him, because at the same time something had been flowering in her that had nothing to do with the body, and everything to do with the heart.

Love. She hadn’t dared give it a name but now it seemed to dance mockingly before her. The warmth and tenderness that had been growing in her, the moment when she had instinctively defended him to Carla, she’d thought this was love.

And all the time he’d been standing back, studying her to discover the best way to make use of her. Something caught in her throat when she remembered waking up to find him watching her, tenderly, as she’d thought; but actually calculating how much money he could make from putting her on the market.

How fiercely he’d seemed to worship her body! And all the time he’d been taking notes, for profit.

Antonio’s photograph was looking at her from the bedside table, his face kind and cynical.

‘You warned me what he was like,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t listen. But those days are over.’