Page 14 of The Venice Murders (Flora Steele Mystery #11)

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Jack might not want complications but he wasn’t entirely convinced either by the notion of homesickness. It seemed a little too pat. Bianca had left Brighton abruptly and, if she was as happy to confide in Sally as she appeared to be, why hadn’t she talked of her feelings? The longing for home was understandable, an emotion familiar to anyone living abroad, but she’d said nothing of her reasons for leaving and it was Sally’s assumption only that homesickness had sent the girl back to Venice. Though Jack didn’t want to, he had to admit that Flora was right in questioning the girl’s sudden departure. Hopefully, Alan Ridley’s call might throw some light on the matter.

‘While you’re sunbathing in the garden, I’ll read on the balcony,’ he told Flora the next day, as she was busy gathering her belongings together for the lazy morning they’d planned. ‘Alan’s call might come through and I don’t want to miss it.’

‘No complications, Jack, remember!’

‘It’s as well to dot the i’s,’ he said defensively. ‘Or I’ll never hear the last of it.’

She gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Let me know what happens. I’ll be by the duck pond.’

He didn’t have long to wait, having barely managed one page of his holiday read before the shrill of the telephone had him hurry from the balcony. Lifting the receiver, it was to hear the banging of doors and the sounds of a scuffle thrumming down the line.

‘Jack, old fellow? Sorry about the commotion. Another drunk for our cells, and at this time in the morning.’ Jack looked across the room at the Murano glass clock. Almost ten, nine o’clock in Brighton.

‘I got on with the search you wanted,’ the inspector continued. ‘In my spare time.’ This was said with heavy irony. ‘Actually, it didn’t take long. Franco Massi proved a complete blank. Nothing whatsoever on him in our records. But Bianca Benetti – I wondered why the name sounded familiar and now I know.’

‘And?’ It had been worth asking, he thought. Trust Flora!

‘She worked at the Old Ship, as you said, but left after a fracas at the hotel. A major confrontation in the foyer that involved her and a hotel guest. Apparently, the man concerned owned a chain of hotels in the West Country and was in Brighton to scout for properties along the south coast – with an eye to developing his business, I imagine. But he fell out with Bianca or Bianca fell out with him?—’

‘But she was a chambermaid,’ Jack objected. How did you fall out with a chambermaid so badly the police had to be called?

‘I’ll come to that in a minute. Until I read the whole report, all I could remember was that whatever the dispute, it turned into a full-scale riot and the hotel manager was forced to call the police to restore order.’

‘You remember his call coming through?’

‘I didn’t take it, old chap, my deputy did – but, as it happened, I was there, at the hotel. Which is why I remembered the girl’s name. I had a cousin staying at the Ship that week and he’d invited me for lunch. I’d walked through the entrance just as one of my constables was laying down the law.’

‘Did you find out what had gone on exactly?’

‘I didn’t at the time – lunch called – but now I’ve looked up the report, I have. The guest, a Mr Holland, complained to the hotel manager that Bianca had been harassing him ever since he’d checked in, asking to be taken on in one of his hotels as a trainee receptionist and, to get rid of her, he’d agreed. But it wasn’t an arrangement he wanted to keep, and was leaving the hotel without confirming a job offer or leaving the girl his details. She must have been watching out for him and when she realised he was hopping it, breaking his promise and, worse, laughing at her, she lost her temper and threw a bowl of fruit at him. The reception always kept a bowl of fruit on the desk, I understand. Perhaps not now, though.’

‘Not exactly a full-scale riot, I’d say.’

‘Hold your horses. You’ve not heard it all. A waiter who was walking through the foyer at the time – I reckon he was keen on Bianca – thought she was being attacked and powered in on her side. He punched the guest in the face, grabbed him in a bear grip and refused to let go – until one of my chaps produced a pair of handcuffs. By then, the foyer was looking less than pristine.’

‘Bianca was dismissed immediately, I imagine.’

‘You’re right, along with the waiter. The hotel manager somehow persuaded the guest not to bring charges – some kind of sweetener was offered, I imagine – and the girl, according to the ferry records at Dover, sailed to Calais two days later.’

‘And from there on to Venice,’ Jack commented.

‘If that’s where the lass is. She’d have left without a reference, that’s for sure.’

‘Yet she found a job here in another hotel.’ It must have been Sally, he thought wryly, who’d been happy to supply a reference.

‘That’s not the last of it either.’ There was the hint of a sigh down the telephone. ‘When I asked for the file on the rumpus at the Old Ship, Norris reminded me that he’d spoken to the Venice police a month or so ago.’

Jack frowned. ‘About Bianca?’

‘About Bianca,’ the inspector confirmed. ‘Holland, the man she had the barney with, has developed a serious health problem – blinding headaches, lack of balance, which he blames on the fight he had at the hotel. He’s gone to his solicitors intending to sue Bianca, the waiter and the Old Ship and, in turn, his solicitors have gone to the police in Venice. Not certain how it works in Italy, but the chap is adamant he wants to sue them all. The commissario who spoke to Norris asked if we had any details of the incident on file. Mr Holland’s legal team has asked the Venice police to question the girl and at the moment they’re not sure what they’re dealing with.’

‘Thanks, Alan.’ Jack stared at the wall, trying to absorb what had been a torrent of information. ‘That’s helpful…I think.’

‘Always one to help, old fellow, but you really need to get on with that honeymoon. Leave Signorina Benetti to us.’

Replacing the receiver, Jack continued to stare fixedly at the wall, the sound of the bedroom door finally rousing him from his thoughts.

‘I forgot my suntan cream,’ Flora began, making for the dressing table. Then, noticing the expression on Jack’s face, she asked, ‘Ridley telephoned? Does he have anything on Franco?’

‘Not Franco.’ Jack dragged himself from his reverie. ‘Bianca. Guilty of affray, I think they call it. A brawl at the Brighton hotel where she worked between Bianca and a guest who didn’t keep his promise.’

‘Which was?’

‘That he’d employ her as a receptionist in one of his hotels.’

Flora’s hand hovered over the drawer and stopped. ‘Really? That is interesting…remember what Sally told us? That Bianca is very keen to leave her job as a chambermaid, that she wants very much to become a receptionist. A ladder perhaps to hotel management. So, her dream hasn’t died, and even Sally, who’s been a good friend to her, thinks that Franco’s position at the Cipriani was part of his attraction.’

She paused, the tube of suntan cream in her hand. ‘I wonder…I wonder if that might be one of the reasons she contacted Sally, begging her to come here. I mean, apart from having few friends and needing a shoulder to cry on. If Bianca no longer sees a future for herself in Venice, is she hoping to return to England? To train as a receptionist at the Priory?’

‘You’re making her sound weaselly.’

‘She’s desperate, Jack. From what Alan’s just told you, she was so frantic for promotion that she was willing to start a physical fight. Is she still using violence, do you think, to gain her ends?’

Jack frowned. ‘What you’re suggesting is that she could have killed Franco. It’s not likely, though, is it? She’d be killing her golden egg. Franco was her future.’

‘Except that the girl evidently has a temper. She lost it at the Old Ship. Perhaps she lost it again when she saw her future slipping away.’

‘Her father has a temper, too,’ Jack reminded her. ‘And he has a far stronger motive for murder than a lost job. He’s furious that his daughter has been rejected by a man he trusted and furious that, in the process, he’s lost a great deal of money.’

‘Has he lost it? Somehow, he found the funds to buy a beautiful new boat – whatever deposit the couple paid on the Mestre flat must have been returned when they cancelled the purchase.’

‘He can still be angry – it’s been a messy business – and we shouldn’t write him out of the plot just yet. And what about all our other characters? Have you forgotten the dubious restaurant and its dirty deeds?’

Flora walked over to the squashy sofa and flopped, stretching herself full-length on the pile of soft cushions. ‘I haven’t forgotten the restaurant. I wish I could,’ she said, yawning. The sun streaming through the balcony windows knitted her in a blanket of warmth. ‘But I think I may forget the garden this morning.’ She yawned again. ‘I’m so comfortable here, it’s making me dozy.’

Too dozy to set her brain in motion when she needed to think. Lodged deep inside her was a conviction – one Flora couldn’t satisfactorily explain – that Asolo was still the key that would unlock the mystery: to the theft, to the kidnapping, even to the murder. Yet neither Bianca nor her father appeared to have any kind of connection to the place. There must be one, she thought drowsily, her eyelids closing against her will. Maybe this evening…

The Santa Maria della Pietà or Vivaldi church was situated on the Riva degli Schiavoni, a short walk from the quayside where the hotel launch had its berth and an even shorter walk from the Doge’s Palace. On the Bridge of Sighs, from where prisoners once took their last glimpse of Venice before incarceration in the doge’s prison cells, they stood for a while, watching a succession of gondoliers as they passed below. The rowers’ toes, Flora noticed, faced outwards ballet style as, with skill, they directed their lopsided craft beneath the bridge and into the network of small canals that furnished the route for each new band of tourists.

From here, they could see the white-pillared church they were making for and already a smattering of people were being greeted by the priest standing at its door. The concert, with its regular performance of The Four Seasons violin concertos, was one of the most popular the church hosted, and Jack had been lucky to obtain tickets for them at fairly short notice.

He reached out for her hand, giving it a small tug. ‘This is a wonderful view but we’d better make tracks. The church is already filling up.’

It was another beautiful summer evening, the air soft and warm and, as Flora stepped through the front entrance into the lobby, she was surprised to find the church almost as mellow – she’d expected the temperature to plunge in the usual ecclesiastical chill, and had brought with her the thickest cardigan she could find. Without fans and in the heat of very high summer, this interior could be stifling, she imagined.

Once in the church proper, Flora paused to look around. An abundance of paintings was her first impression, every wall filled, while above them the ceiling flamed with a tumultuous vision of storm clouds, trumpeting angels and tumbling putti singing for all their worth.

Jack, tickets in hand, beckoned her towards a pew three or four rows back from the low stage and, once seated, she could see better how cleverly the church had been built. The oratorio was oval-shaped and the atrium surrounding it had clearly been designed to dispel noise from the quays and the harbour outside. The church was like a white egg, she thought, smiling at the simile. A fresh, white egg, with flashes of red from curtains and kneelers providing a contrast.

But it was the balconies and choir stalls, elegant in wrought iron, that took most of her attention. It was from the choir stalls, she’d read, that the young girls living in the orphanage supported by the Pietà had given regular performances of sacred and secular music.

‘Do you see?’ Jack nudged her to look upwards, his eyes bright with pleasure. ‘Tiepolo’s great fresco.’

‘I do, but did you know,’ she asked, a sly grin emerging, ‘that Vivaldi’s father was a barber who played in the orchestra at San Marco?’

Jack might know about frescoes but it was good occasionally to know something he didn’t! The church, she’d learned, built by Massari in classical style, had once been the chapel of a foundling hospital, one of several in the city playing a central role in the Venetian Republic’s musical life. Antonio Vivaldi, having been ordained a priest, had himself taught at the Pietà orphanage on and off throughout his life.

‘I suppose it was inevitable the barber’s son became a musician,’ she added.

‘But not inevitable he became a virtuoso violinist.’

She dredged her mind for a moment before whispering, ‘I bet you didn’t know that Vivaldi was called the “red priest” for the colour of his hair.’

Laughing, Jack pulled a face. ‘OK, you win. For now. But please stop reading that guidebook!’

The book was soon forgotten, however, along with the hard, wooden pews, once the four violinists began to play.

From the first movement, Flora was swept away by the sheer beauty of the music, the wonderful acoustics of the church playing their part. Her body was left behind as mind and heart followed the sweep of the seasons: in autumn, the harvest with song and dance and drink, in winter the melancholy of wind and ice before the joy of spring and new life – birds singing, fountains flowing – and finally, the buzzing of insects and the blazing sun of summertime.

Only then did Flora become aware of the pew where she sat, of the church and the people and Jack at her side. He leaned towards her, a question in his eyes.

‘You enjoyed it?’

‘Enjoyed? I must have. It’s just I…no words,’ she said simply.

‘No words needed,’ he agreed.

Glancing over her shoulder, she took in the audience for the first time, now picking up handbags, adjusting jackets, making ready to leave, as the last ripple of applause echoed around the old, white walls. Many, like them, were clearly visitors to the city, but a substantial number of the concertgoers seemed likely to be local. Three rows behind them she noticed the black clothing of a priest, his back half-turned, as he edged his way out of the pew and into the aisle.

Father Renzi, she was sure! She was too far away to call out to him, but as he joined the line of people waiting to leave the church, he turned his head and glanced over his shoulder, looking Jack and Flora fully in the face. It was Stephano Renzi and she gave him a friendly wave.

There was no answering wave. No smile. No effort to respond at all, his expression empty and unknowing. She gave another wave, smaller this time and less confident, but that too went unacknowledged. As she watched, the priest turned back towards the entrance and shuffled forward with the rest of the audience.

‘That was Father Renzi,’ she said, urgently pulling at Jack’s sleeve. ‘Did you see him? It’s plain he saw us, but then turned away.’

Jack had seen the priest. ‘He may be in a hurry,’ he excused, ‘and doesn’t have the time to talk.’

‘Jack,’ she protested, ‘this is the man who’s begged us to help him find his housekeeper, if not his painting, and he doesn’t have time to say good evening! Doesn’t have time even to wave hello? Why did he walk away like that? Why ignore us so blatantly?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Jack gathered up his jacket. ‘But I don’t think it’s something that should worry us.’

Flora was conflicted but said nothing until they were outside the church and once more walking back along the Riva to where the Cipriani launch waited for them.

‘I don’t agree,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘I think we should be concerned. Something’s happened to Father Renzi since we last saw him. It must have, to make him act so oddly. But what?’

Jack came to a halt. ‘I really think you should forget the incident, Flora. If something has gone even more amiss, we’ll learn about it soon enough.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘We’ve had a wonderful evening and it’s not over yet. There are still a few more hours – let’s enjoy them.’

It was an evening to enjoy, she had to accept: music still played in her ears, moonlight spread its silver across the lagoon, and the warm sweet air hugged them close. These were hours to remember for the rest of her life.

But still, that moment in the church – the priest’s refusal to acknowledge them – that had been deeply uncomfortable and she couldn’t forget.