Page 1 of The Venice Murders (Flora Steele Mystery #11)

1

VENICE, JUNE 1959

‘Happy?’ Jack Carrington asked.

His nearly new wife looked up from the risotto she’d been demolishing, her face aglow, and reached across the table to squeeze his hand.

‘How could I not be?’

Sitting beneath La Zucca’s green-striped awning, baskets of flowers hanging from its iron rails. Flora’s gaze drifted across the narrow canal that ran alongside the terrace: to the jumble of pink-painted houses and terracotta roofs opposite and to the landing stage where a solitary gondola danced on the coming tide as it waited for morning.

‘Our first evening in Venice, Jack! And only a few hours ago, we were still in Sussex! I find that so hard to believe.’

The journey had been smooth, far smoother than she’d expected. When Jack had first suggested they fly to Venice, she hadn’t been at all keen. It had taken him time to persuade her that, if they were to make the most of their honeymoon, this was the way to travel; had taken time to overcome her fear of boarding a plane for the first time in her life. But eventually she’d agreed, swallowing hard when the tickets arrived and she saw how much they had cost. In the event, those tickets had been worth every penny, though Flora couldn’t say that she’d actually enjoyed the experience – in her opinion, the plane was flying quite high enough at treetop level – but the pilot had had other ideas and somehow in less than four hours they had arrived at Treviso airport and from there taken a coach to the Piazzale Roma.

Her first sight from the coach, however, of what she’d taken to be Venice, had been a crushing disappointment; a glimpse of a forest of cranes, a spread of smokestacks and clouds of filthy air.

‘Mestre,’ she’d read aloud from a signpost they were passing ‘So not Venice?’ She was hopeful.

‘Porto Marghera,’ Jack told her. ‘Mestre is next door. Marghera is the industrial zone. Chemicals are what they manufacture mostly.’

‘It looks a wretched place.’

‘It looked even more wretched after our bombers got to grips with it,’ he said drily.

‘I didn’t think Venice was bombed in the war.’

‘Venice wasn’t. Marghera was. In the thirties, there must have been sixty or so working factories here. The place seems gradually to be getting back on its feet, but it’s taken a while to recover.’

They had crossed the causeway by then which, together with the railway bridge, ensured that Venice was no longer an island, and arrived at a Piazzale Roma that to Flora had seemed little better. It appeared to be nothing more than a giant car park which, in truth, it was, since from this point travelling by road was impossible.

But then the magic had happened. A private launch sent from the Cipriani was waiting close by, ready to take them on a wondrous journey down the Grand Canal. And how truly grand it was – every bit as magnificent as Flora had expected, palazzo after palazzo standing proud on either side of the broad waterway.

In no time, it seemed, they’d travelled its whole length and were being whisked across a further stretch of water to the hotel she had set her heart on, and to a beautiful balcony room. They’d had time then only for a swift unpacking before they’d caught the same launch back to St Mark’s, back to Venice itself, to enjoy this, their first dinner, of what was now a very belated honeymoon.

‘That was the best risotto I’ve eaten in years,’ Jack said, pushing his empty plate to one side and easing himself back into the wicker chair. ‘Dare I say, even better than Alice’s.’

Alice Jenner, head chef at the Priory Hotel, an expensive establishment in their home village of Abbeymead, had charged them with collecting recipes wherever they could on this trip. It would keep them busy, she’d said severely, too busy to get involved in any of ‘that pokin’ and pryin’’. She wanted them home in one piece.

‘You can say it, as long as you don’t let her hear. She’s been trying to achieve the perfect risotto, I think, ever since she read Elizabeth David, but has never quite got there – no one else in England seems to make it better, though. Do you think the restaurant owner would give us the recipe?’

‘I doubt he would. It’s probably a family secret. In any case, the chap seems too busy to ask.’

Flora glanced from the terrace towards the restaurant door where the proprietor was talking earnestly with another man. More than earnestly, she thought. He had his legs planted astride, almost filling the doorway, his hands were pistons thrusting at the air and his plump cheeks appeared to quiver as he spoke.

‘Don’t we know that man? The man he’s talking to. He’s from our hotel, isn’t he? The receptionist who checked us in.’

Jack followed her gaze. ‘Yes, you’re right. Nice chap. Franco – that was the name on his badge.’

Franco Massi had been helpful, offering them all the courtesies expected of a prestigious hotel, but doing so with an engaging friendliness. He’d been happy to suggest several restaurants near St Mark’s where they might eat on their first evening in the city. This small restaurant, with its brightly striped awning, had been one of his recommendations.

The quarrel, and it was definitely a quarrel, had now escalated in noise and fury and several of the customers at the surrounding tables had begun to look alarmed. The owner, Silvio Fabbri, according to the legend above the doorway, stopped punching the air and instead jabbed fingers at his antagonist’s chest, whereupon Franco grabbed hold of the man’s arm and twisted it to one side. A full-scale confrontation was emerging but was saved, to Flora’s relief, by the waiter who had served them. He stepped between the two men, muttering something beneath his breath and waving a warning hand towards the sea of customers transfixed by the dispute. It seemed to bring both men to their senses; Fabbri let his hands fall to his sides while the receptionist pulled back, then turned abruptly on his heel and marched away.

‘What was that about, do you think?’ Flora’s eyes were wide. ‘Did you understand anything?’

Jack had learnt a little Italian from his war years, but the speech had been too rapid and too idiomatic for him to translate even a sentence. He shook his head. ‘They were speaking in dialect, I’m pretty sure.’

‘Veneziano? I read about it. My book said it was the local language.’

‘It could have been Veneziano. I wouldn’t know. But it was a nasty confrontation.’

‘Yes,’ she said, feeling a little unsettled. ‘And strange, too. Franco appeared such an easy-going man. But it’s over, and I’m about to eat my first Italian ice cream before a very long sleep in that magnificent bed that’s waiting for us.’ She pondered the menu. ‘But how on earth am I to choose? Crema , amarena , vaniglia , fragola , pesca , and on and on…which one, Jack?’

‘ Cioccolato and crema ,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Made for you!’

It wasn’t until the next morning that the quarrel they’d witnessed was recalled. After a leisurely breakfast on the Cipriani terrace overlooking the lagoon, they again took the hotel’s complimentary ferry across the Giudecca Canal to St Mark’s Square, and spent most of the morning wandering, stopping only for Flora to browse one or two of the gift shops they saw on the way. Walking was the thing to do. All the guidebooks Flora had read had been adamant. Just walk, they’d advised: along narrow paths, over small bridges, in and out of piazzas. Lose yourself in the atmosphere; in fact, lose yourself quite literally. That would have been easy enough, she thought, but thanks to Jack’s map reading, they arrived at the Accademia Gallery as they’d intended, only to decide that it was too beautiful a day to spend indoors.

Now, elbows resting on the plain wood of the Accademia Bridge, an appealing counterpoint to the marble splendours all around, Flora looked along the glinting waters of the Grand Canal. On one side, the dome of Santa Maria della Salute and on the other a quieter bend of the canal which would lead eventually to the Rialto Bridge.

‘Shall we keep walking, or is it time to try some lunchtime pasta?’ she asked, holding her face up to the sun. Freckles were already making themselves at home, first on the bridge of her nose and later, she knew, they would sprinkle her cheekbones.

Jack came to a halt, appearing to weigh the options. ‘My stomach is definitely suggesting pasta, and my legs are saying they’ve had enough, so let’s find a café – there’ll be plenty on our way back to St Mark’s.’

Arm in arm, they sauntered off the bridge, Jack stopping to buy a newspaper from one of the local sellers they passed. ‘Testing my Italian,’ he explained.

‘And, of course, that’s just what you need on a honeymoon!’ She gave him a playful nudge, catching hold of the paper as he was tucking it under his arm. ‘This photograph on the front page.’ She opened the newspaper fully. ‘Isn’t that…isn’t that Franco Massi?’

Jack stopped, spreading the paper wide and fumbled for his reading glasses. Once he had them perched on his nose, he peered down at the image, frowning heavily. ‘You’re right. It is him. Oh…oh…!’ Abruptly, he folded the newspaper in half and went once more to tuck it beneath his arm.

‘What?’ she asked, half-impatient, half-concerned.

‘He’s…he’s dead,’ Jack said reluctantly.

‘He can’t be.’

Even more reluctantly, he unfolded the paper again and showed it to her. ‘The report says that a man was found in the Grand Canal early this morning, a little way from the Rialto – by a worker at the market – and has subsequently been identified. Hence the picture, I imagine.’

‘Are you reading it right?’

‘I know my Italian is poor, but I can read that. It’s there in black and white.’ His fingers gave the newspaper a sharp rap.

‘He wasn’t at reception this morning, was he?’ she said slowly. ‘I imagined it must be his day off, but…’

Flora fell silent for a moment, adjusting the straps of her sundress several times as though it would help her to think. ‘Franco was in such a temper last night when he stormed off, I wonder…do you think he could have been walking blind, not watching where he was going, then tripped and fell into the canal?’

Even as she voiced the explanation, it felt limp. Jack, however, seemed keen to agree. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘I guess people fall into canals every day.’

To Flora’s ears, he sounded hopeful, and she knew why. He’d want nothing to disturb what should be a perfect holiday. It didn’t stop him, though, from returning to read the article, his eyes now travelling down the paper. ‘There’s a sly comment here from the journalist. Not actually accusing the dead man of being a drunkard, but suggesting he wasn’t averse to a drink.’

‘Massi wasn’t drunk,’ she objected.

‘Not when we saw him, but later? In an alcoholic haze, it wouldn’t be difficult to come a cropper in that maze of alleyways and end up in a canal.’

Flora felt the niggle, a lack of conviction. ‘Unless it wasn’t an accident.’

Jack lowered the paper and stared at her. ‘No!’ he said at last. ‘Definitely no! We are not going there, Flora. This is our honeymoon. Massi’s death is being treated as an accident by the authorities and that’s how it should stay.’

‘Of course it should,’ she said airily.

Side by side, they strolled in silence along the narrow alleyway and into a large open square, home to several cafés.

‘Shall we find a table here?’ he asked.

Eating, though, no longer felt so important to Flora and instead of answering his question, she said quietly, ‘I don’t think we should forget how many times we’ve encountered so-called “accidents” – in Abbeymead and beyond – which in the end have turned out not to be so accidental.’

‘Flora!’ he pleaded.

She gave a little shrug. ‘OK. If you insist, it’s an accident.’ She took his arm again and hugged him close. ‘You’re probably right. It was a different situation when it was our own village involved and people who were close to us. In any case, Venice is too wonderful to be sidetracked.’

‘Good,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Now for lunch. We could eat here or walk on to the Giardini. There’s a lovely café in the gardens, I remember, but it’s a bit of a hike.’

‘No matter. It means I’ll see even more of Venice on the way. And isn’t it wonderful being able to eat outdoors all the time? I could really get used to it, though we’ll be home before we know it. How are we going to fit everything in? We’ve less than two weeks and there’s so much to see.’

‘There is, and we’ll have to choose wisely – it’s much too hot to rush around. We can decide on a plan over lunch.’

‘Will visiting your mother be part of the plan?’

‘My mother?’ He sounded startled and Flora could understand why.

The last time Jack had seen Sybil Carrington, now Sybil Falconi, had been in the south of France almost two years ago. Since then, communication between mother and son had dribbled to a close, and a familiar silence descended.

‘She’s living nearby, isn’t she?’ Flora suggested gently. ‘I thought you might want to call on her, or at least telephone.’

She had been unsure whether to mention Sybil. At home, she’d studiously avoided including his mother in any conversation about Venice, but now they were actually in the city it felt uncomfortable not to at least try to make contact.

‘I don’t particularly want to,’ he said. ‘And I doubt she’s eager to hear from me.’

After a fraught childhood, Jack had managed a kind of accommodation with his mother when he’d acted the dutiful son and rode to her rescue, exposing a very nasty plot against her. But it couldn’t be said they were ever likely to have what Flora considered a normal mother and son relationship.

‘She wouldn’t expect me to call,’ he went on, ‘and, in any case, the count’s estate will be miles away – the Veneto is a large area. And, after what happened in France, I’ve seen enough of wineries to last me a lifetime. This is our time, Flora.’

She couldn’t feel completely happy over the situation, but kept her thoughts to herself, wanting nothing to spoil the holiday that had filled her dreams for months.

‘Tomorrow, we could take a boat to San Giorgio Maggiore,’ Jack was saying, as they walked out of St Mark’s and onto the Riva degli Schiavoni, a walkway that bordered the lagoon. ‘That’s the one you can see from our hotel balcony. Or, if we’re up for a “church” day, the Redentore is actually on the Giudecca. And I saw a Vivaldi concert advertised – it was being held in the church where he played. The one we’ve just passed.’ He came to a halt. ‘Shall we eat here?’

Despite their decision to head for the Giardini, he’d stopped at a bacaro , a tiny neighbourhood bar tucked into an alcove off the Riva. ‘What do you think?’ He pointed to the display of finger food he’d spied.

Flora looked. ‘Too tempting to leave,’ she confirmed and, in a very short time, they’d found seats at a table in what was no more than a passageway.

‘You’re going to love these,’ he promised as the waiter brought an array of small plates to the table. ‘Almost as much as you loved last night’s risotto!’

And she did: a plate of fried meatballs, a variety of cicchetti , a dish of breaded shrimp and one of baked zucchini, all washed down with several glasses of cold rosé.

Wiping her fingers on a paper napkin, Flora’s sigh breathed content. ‘I love eating this way, but it makes you greedy. Because the cicchetti are small, you order far too many.’

‘Never too many,’ Jack said solemnly, pouring another glass of wine.