I felt a puff of air close to my ear, followed by a thud and the splinter of wood. Turning, I caught sight of two metal darts embedded in the back of the door. The coiled wires connected to them glowed a quite alarming shade of orange, but that was nothing compared to the determined grimace on Victoria’s face as she held tightly to her Taser gun.
‘Holy crap,’ I said, staggering backwards. ‘You nearly bloody got me.’
‘Charlie? Oh my God. I’m so sorry. What are you doing in here?’
She was still clenching the trigger, discharging voltage, and her shoulders were quaking, almost as if she’d accidentally electrocuted herself.
These were curious times indeed. It wasn’t often I had two women hold a weapon on me in the middle of the night.
‘I was trying to wake you.’ I raised a hand to the side of my face. ‘I felt that thing go right past my ear. You almost shot me in the face.’
‘Well what the hell did you expect?’ she snapped. ‘I thought you were one of the bad guys.’
Semantics aside – I had just agreed to kill a man – I didn’t think I’d changed sides just yet. Ducking under the coils of wire, I moved across the room to turn on the main light.
‘You might want to let go of the trigger now,’ I suggested.
‘Oh, Christ.’ Victoria did just that, dropping the gun as if it had scalded her. ‘I don’t know how you get the wires back inside.’
‘I’m guessing it helps if you use a pair of pliers to remove the darts from the back of the door.’
‘Oops. Sorry, Charlie.’
‘That’s okay. It’s better than having you fish them out of my throat, I suppose.’
Stepping over to the bed, I gingerly picked up the Taser and tossed it away across the floor. I shuddered. For some reason, it seemed less predictable than a conventional pistol.
Victoria rested her hands on her kneecaps. She was wearing sleeping shorts along with the vest. I’d hardly had time to register the information when she caught me looking and covered herself with her duvet.
Not what I’d intended
. I needed her to get out of bed and pack, not tuck herself in. And I definitely didn’t want her thinking that her very fine legs, or any other part of her anatomy for that matter, were the reason I was currently in her bedroom at, oh, twenty past four in the morning.
‘What time is it?’ she asked, blinking and pinching the bridge of her nose.
I told her, then explained why exactly I’d woken her.
I can’t say the colour drained from her face because she’d hardly been relaxed before I delivered the news, but she did appear to shiver during a number of points in my tale, and by the end of my account she’d taken to covering her mouth with her hand and shaking her head. I suppose it must have been something of a shock. God knows, it had been unsettling enough for me to go through the experience myself.
‘Did Graziella really leave you a gun?’ Victoria whispered.
‘Wait here,’ I said, before making my way downstairs and checking my letterbox. Sure enough, the dirty big pistol and the dinky stun gun were stashed inside. Of course, I hadn’t had the foresight to put on my plastic gloves, so I had to return to my bathroom and fetch a towel before heading downstairs a second time to gather the pistol. Graziella had worn leather gloves when she’d handled the gun, so there wasn’t much hope of finding her fingerprints (or much I could do about it if I did), but I certainly didn’t want to add any of my own.
I popped the stun gun inside my pocket and headed back upstairs, only pausing on my way into my apartment to consider the locks Graziella had defeated. I couldn’t see any indication of tampering and there was no sign of any damage. She’d done a clean, thoroughly professional job. The same couldn’t be said of the shattered alarm sensor, which had most probably been stomped on, but there was no denying that her invasion of my home had been an unqualified success.
Returning to Victoria’s room, I laid the towel out on her bed so that she could inspect the gun. At first, she backed away from it, but soon her curiosity got the better of her and she leaned forwards for a closer look. As she bowed her head, I found myself searching for where Graziella had cut Victoria’s hair. There were no obvious bald patches or uneven spots. I guess it helped that she favoured a layered style. Who knew, perhaps she’d even like what Graziella had done? Not that I was stupid enough to tell her about it. But then again, it could be that Graziella had fooled me. Maybe the hair that had fallen from her hand had been a sample from one of her wigs.
‘Is that a silencer?’ Victoria asked, with some reverence.
‘I believe so. That’s why I thought she was here to kill me.’
She lowered her face closer still, sniffing the barrel. ‘Is it loaded?’
I went up on my toes and craned my neck, but I still couldn’t see an obvious gap in her hairline. ‘I imagine so,’ I said. ‘It’s certainly heavy.’
‘How many bullets does it hold?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
Victoria glanced up to find me teetering above her. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied, trying, and no doubt failing, to appear innocent as I dropped back down to my heels. ‘Why do you ask about the number of bullets? Do you think it’s important?’
‘No,’ she said, fixing me with a cool look, then using a corner of the towel to tilt the gun until the muzzle was pointing at my crotch. ‘I guess one would be enough.’
‘Charming.’
‘Although it’s not simply idle curiosity.’ She waggled the pistol from side to side. ‘It occurred to me that she would have to have a lot of faith in you if she didn’t provide you with any spares.’
‘Eh?’
‘Well, it would mean she thought you were a bloody good shot, wouldn’t it?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘perhaps. But I did say I might not use the gun.’
Victoria offered me a level stare.
‘I mentioned a knife, or even strangling him.
She snorted. ‘Sounds like you gave it some serious thought.’
‘Of course not. I just wanted to make her think that was the case so that she’d go.’
‘Which she did. So why did she leave you the gun?’
‘Insurance, I suppose.’
Victoria peered at me, then raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You don’t think she’s already, you know, used this? I mean, she has tried to set you up for one crime, already.’
‘The thought did occur to me. She could have been to the palazzo, say, and shot the Count before coming here.’
‘Exactly. Then all she’d have to do is send the police to your door and tell them to look for this.’ Victoria’s eyebrows made a brave attempt to cosy up to her hairline as she pushed the pistol away from her. I wasn’t sure what the expression was meant to tell me, but I didn’t imagine it was good. Mind you, there was a flaw in her thinking I couldn’t ignore. If this was all an elaborate set-up, Graziella would have had no need to wake me. She could simply have hidden the gun in my apartment and called the police at her leisure. ‘Maybe you should toss this in a canal.’
Now that did strike me as a sensible suggestion. Especially as I wasn’t planning on hanging around.
‘Good idea,’ I told Victoria. ‘We can ditch it on our way out of here.’
‘Out of here? Are we going somewhere?’
I stepped to one side and motioned towards my luggage in the hallway. ‘Always best to know when to quit. And now seems like a perfect time to me. It’s dark outside. If we hurry, we can probably make it to the train station before dawn. And it would be good if we could get out without Martin and Antea hearing us – I still owe them for last month’s rent.’
Victoria leaned backwards, resting on her arms, and stared at me in apparent confusion. I knew it was early, but it had seemed quite straightforward to me.
‘Chop chop,’ I told her, and snatched at a drawer on the dressing table beside me. It was full of Victoria’s underthings. Not the most appropriate items for me to pack. Flustered, I spun round until my eyes settled on the wardrobe. Had to be on surer ground there. ‘You fold, I’ll fetch,’ I said, meanwhile yanking a fistful of blouses from their hangers and tossing them onto the bed.
‘
Charlie.’
‘Not a folder? That’s okay – me neither.’
Her suitcase was on the floor in the corner of the room. Tipping back the lid with my toe, I dropped the blouses inside and went back for more.
‘Charlie, stop. Please.’
I paused, mid-grab, and turned to look at her. ‘Problem?’
‘Yes there’s a bloody problem. What are you doing? We can’t just go.’
Uh-oh. I’d been afraid she might say something like that. ‘I was only joking about the rent,’ I told her. ‘I’ll leave some cash in an envelope on the sideboard. Okay?’
‘No, it’s not okay. And that’s not the problem.’
Now, there have been times in my life when I’ve sensed that allowing a particular conversation to develop was the absolute worst thing I could do – that the consequences of not nipping a discussion in the bud would almost certainly be dire. This was one of those occasions. But while I’d matured enough to be able to recognise the danger signs, I still appeared to be powerless to break the pattern.
‘Maybe we should chat about this on the way to the train station?’ I suggested. ‘Or better still when we’re actually on a train. I was wondering about Switzerland. It has to be a safe haven, right? You don’t hear about murders and bomb plots in the Alps. Peaceful too. I’ll bet I could get a lot of writing done. Find a tranquil spot beside a lake. In fact, I suspect—’
‘Will you shut up?’ Victoria glared at me. ‘The point is we can’t just leave.’
‘Of course we can. I can’t for the life of me think of one good reason why we shouldn’t.’
‘Well, take a seat,’ she told me, ‘and I’ll run through the list.’
Victoria is a big fan of lists. I don’t have the most ordered of minds – which is something of a handicap for a guy who pens mystery novels for a living – but Victoria is my polar opposite. If my brain was an office, it would be one of those cluttered, closet-sized rooms, filled with teetering stacks of paper and a desk that’s impossible to access. By contrast, I imagine Victoria’s head space would be a spotless glass capsule, smelling of polish and featuring sleek computer equipment, banks of well-organised filing cabinets and perhaps even a whiteboard with a sensible To-Do list written upon it.
Sometimes, I suspect that what she enjoys above all other pleasures in life is pointing out those things that I’ve overlooked (or preferred to ignore). So, despite the gravity of our situation, the early hour and my distinct lack of patience, I could sense that she was feeling more than a little pleased with herself.
‘Tell me,’ she began, much like a courtroom lawyer about to embark on an important cross-examination, ‘what do you suppose will happen if we
do
leave?’
‘I don’t know, Vic. I was hoping we might get breakfast at the station and perhaps eat lunch on the train. Our destination might not be somewhere I’ll stay for long, but hopefully it’ll suit me for a week, at least.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said, in a tone that suggested I’d known very well what she was driving at. Which I had.
I sat down on the end of her bed, a bundle of her clothes resting in my lap. ‘Are we really going to do this?’
‘Absolutely. So allow me to rephrase my question. What do you suppose will happen to Count Borelli if we leave?’
‘Hard to say.’
‘Is it really? I’d say it’s pretty damn simple. He’s going to be killed.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Charlie, admit it.’ Blimey. In a moment, she’d be asking me to place my hand on the Good Book and swear to tell nothing but the truth.
‘Listen,’ I told her, ‘so far as Graziella is concerned, he’ll also be killed if we stay. I’m the one who’s meant to do the killing, remember?’
Victoria exhaled sharply, threw back her covers and snatched up her dressing gown. She shoved her arms through the sleeves and roughly tied the cord around her waist. I wouldn’t have been hugely surprised to learn that she was tempted to tighten the cord around my neck.
‘Are you going to take this seriously?’ she asked.
‘Didn’t you see my bags out in the hall?’
Victoria glared at me in frustration, then bolted from her room. No doubt the best thing I could have done would have been to pack her things and deal with her tantrum later. But when I heard her banging cupboard doors in the kitchen as if she was aiming to wake the inhabitants of Mestre, I decided I should try to calm her down.
I sauntered into the kitchen to find her filling the kettle and setting it to boil.
‘Victoria,’ I tried, but she refused to turn and look at me. Instead, she reached up to the shelf above the cooker for a cup, then hesitated, and finally reached for a second.
‘Tea?’ she asked, through clenched teeth.
Ah, the traditional British solution for every predicament. Just drink a warm stewed beverage and all your worldly problems will slip away.
‘I’m sorry, Vic,’ I told her. ‘We can talk. I’ll be sensible this time.’ I stepped towards her and touched her shoulder. ‘Go and sit in the lounge,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring the drinks through.’
True to my word, I did just that, and since I was feeling generous, I added my last two biscuits to Victoria’s saucer. I found her sitting on the chesterfield. After setting our cups down on the steamer trunk, I turned my writing chair to face her and arranged myself in a slouched position with the heels of my baseball shoes resting on the edge of the trunk. Victoria didn’t appear to be bowled over by my biscuit gesture, but despite herself, she was prepared to chomp away all the same.
‘All right, here’s what I really think,’ I said, in something of a heavy voice. ‘If we flee Venice, then in all likelihood the Count will be murdered. Graziella might be a touch doolally, but she strikes me as determined. And if we take what she said to me at face value, so are these “powerful” people behind her.’ I shaped the speech marks with my fingers, undaunted by how ridiculous it made me look. ‘They obviously have resources, not to mention access to guns and explosives. So I’d say it’s a fair bet the guy’s days are numbered.’
‘That’s what I think too,’ Victoria said, biscuit crumbs tumbling from her lips. ‘And if we go without doing anything, we’ll have been partly responsible.’