Текст книги "Isle of the Dead"

Автор книги: Alex Connor

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

52

Infuriated, Ravenscourt watched the American walk out, listened as he heard his footsteps echo down the stairs and on to the piazza beyond. Curious, he then moved to the window in time to see Tom Morgan crossing the bridge which connected the houses on one side of the canal with the other. When he was certain the American had gone, Ravenscourt dismissed the servant and then closed the drawing room doors.

Anger had taken its toll on him. Anger that he had been cheated out of the Titian when he had been so close. That Seraphina’s death had occurred before she had included him in a plan which would have netted all three of them a fortune. Why hadn’t she confided in him sooner? Ravenscourt asked himself, surprised that Seraphina had been so sly. But maybe it had taken a while to connect the plan, and she had been killed before she could approach him. Or maybe it had taken time for her to be persuaded.

Smuggling the Titian out of the country would have been relatively easy for Johnny Ravenscourt. He had contacts from the old days and could press anyone into committing a minor crime for a major reward. Seraphina’s deception had surprised him, but then again, he had only Tom Morgan’s account of what she had said. Seraphina could hardly speak for herself.

He had always suspected Tom Morgan. Maybe he had pressurised his wife against her will, knowing how easy it would be for her to get her old friend on board. Everyone knew that Johnny Ravenscourt was immoral, greedy. Everyone knew he liked to mix with a rough crowd, the criminal element adding a frisson to his sex life. There had been more than a few thieves invited into Johnny Ravenscourt’s bed over the years.

But to have lost out on the Titian portrait of Angelico Vespucci, his obsession! It was almost too much to bear … He thought of Tom Morgan, uncertain of the American’s motives and curious as to why he had taken such a sudden interest in the Barmantino painting. God knows it had been hanging in the Morgan apartment the whole time they had lived there, and he never even remarked on it before. Except to say that Claudia Moroni had been a plain woman.

Of course Seraphina had always liked the picture. She thought Claudia Moroni had had a fascinating face, a look which almost prophesied her death. She had often commented that she would make sure to keep the painting in the family, and talked of moving it into the new flat. And she wasn’t blind to the fact that it was also a pretty good investment … Ravenscourt frowned. If Seraphina was alive now she wouldn’t have approved of her husband selling the apartment, or the painting.

Restlessly, he fiddled with the beaded chain on his reading glasses, uncertain of what to do next. He wasn’t intending to return to England for a while – the police would be only too interested in his re-appearance – but in Venice he had no way of discovering what was going on in London. He was out of the loop and afraid that he might suffer for it.

Taking a breath, Ravenscourt realised that there was only one course of action open to him, and put in a phone call.

Nino answered on the third ring. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s Johnny Ravenscourt—’

‘You bastard!’

‘Hear me out!’ he pleaded, his tone plaintive. ‘I had to get the police off my back—’

‘And on to mine?’

‘They let you go,’ Ravenscourt said dismissively. ‘What are you complaining about? Gaspare pulled in an old favour and I retracted my statement. Besides, you must have done well out of this. And I haven’t asked for my retainer back. Have you spent all of it?’

At the other end of the line Nino shook his head in disbelief, and lied. ‘Yes. All of it.’

‘Whatever did you do with it?’

‘I went to Japan on a wild goose chase. Which pretty much sums up everything about you and your story.’

‘You saw Jobo Kido in Japan?’

‘I saw him, but I’m none the wiser,’ Nino lied again, mistrusting Ravenscourt and determined that he would give him no information. ‘What d’you want?’

‘I want you to carry on working for me—’

‘Like hell.’

‘Mr Bergstrom, I’ll pay you whatever you want. You can go to Japan, New York – wherever you like. I just need to know what’s going on – and I can’t do that stuck here in Venice.’

‘Go on the internet.’

‘I don’t see why you’re so defensive,’ Ravenscourt replied, his tone honeyed…. ‘You should snatch my hand off. I’ve money to burn, so why not relieve me of some of it? I brought you in on this—’

‘No, you didn’t. I got involved because of Gaspare Reni’s friendship with Seraphina.’

‘I was much closer to her!’ Ravenscourt snapped. ‘And I gave you all my notes on The Skin Hunter. I gave you a head start, and now I want some feedback. I want to know who killed Seraphina—’

‘And you want to know where the Titian is.’

‘I’m a dealer – what’s wrong with that?’ he replied, then softened his tone. ‘I admit, I’d like the painting. But so would a number of other dealers – that doesn’t make me a suspect.’

‘It doesn’t clear you either.’

‘You can’t believe that I killed Seraphina, or the other women!’

‘I don’t know who killed them.’

‘But you’re still trying to find out?’

Nino paused, deciding to string Ravenscourt along. The dealer was stuck in Venice, so he could tell him anything and he had no way of knowing if it was true or not. And besides, if he carried on talking to Johnny Ravenscourt, the dealer might let something slip.

‘Have you seen Tom Morgan lately?’

Ravenscourt relaxed, sure that Nino was back on board. Sure that he could deceive him again. He was tired of the skittish Tom Morgan and wanted him corralled.

‘Actually, I saw Morgan today …’ Ravenscourt began, thinking of all the American’s vicious jibes and his nosy interest in the Barmantino. ‘He was acting very strangely.’

‘How?’

‘Jumpy, on the defensive.’

‘About what?’

‘Well, I hate to be the one to say it,’ the dealer paused, then took aim, ‘but I think he might have something to do with his wife’s death after all.’

53

Greenfield’s Hospital, London

In between shifts, Patrick Dewick lit up a cigarette at the back of the hospital, drawing in the tobacco smoke and relishing the sensation. Then he started coughing, finally spitting out a gob of phlegm which landed in the puddle at his feet. Sniffing, he leaned against the wall and stared upwards into the sky. It was going to snow again. Bugger it, he would have a hell of a time getting home. The car was unreliable and whatever his wife had said, Patrick wasn’t convinced that she had put in antifreeze. He should leave her to it, see how she liked it when the bloody car wouldn’t start at the supermarket. It would be another matter then – she wouldn’t forget the sodding antifreeze next time.

His thoughts drifted, suddenly alighting on Nino Bergstrom. It had been peculiar talking about Eddie Ketch after so long – the man had always left a sour taste in his mouth – but oddly enough, once reminded, he couldn’t stop thinking about him. The upset with Susan Coates had been uppermost in his mind, but there had been something else about Ketch which eluded him.

Inhaling again, Patrick screwed up his eyes against the cigarette smoke and peered into the falling snow. Under the overhang of the porch leading to the car park, he was sheltered from the worst of it, snow landing morosely on the concrete at his feet. Nino Bergstrom had asked him about Ketch’s family. And he’d said that he never talked about them. But that wasn’t true, Patrick remembered – there had been one instance when Ketch had slipped up, and mentioned a woman. A beautiful woman.

But Patrick was damned if he could remember her name.

Ketch had been angry that day, unusually emotional. He had left the ward and slammed into the men’s toilet, where Patrick had found him, his face flushed, his hands flat against the wall, repeating a woman’s name over and over again. His attractive face had been distorted with rage, but as soon as he spotted Patrick, Ketch had controlled himself. A moment later he looked normal – so normal Patrick had wondered if he’d imagined the whole incident. But he knew he hadn’t. And he knew Ketch’s rage had been directed at a woman. A woman he had known well. A woman he had obviously cared about.

After finishing his cigarette, Patrick was just about to re-enter the hospital and go back to work, when he paused. On a whim, he phoned the number Nino had given him, leaving a message on the answerphone.

‘’Lo there. This is Patrick Dewick, at Greenfield’s Hospital. We spoke the other day, about Eddie Ketch. Well, I just remembered something about him. He had a girlfriend, a woman he was keen on. I can’t remember her name – but I will, and then I’ll call you again. I just wondered if it was important, that’s all. Cheers.’

Clicking off his mobile, Patrick ground out his cigarette stub under his foot and went back to work. He would remember the woman’s name.

But before he had time to pass it on, Eddie Ketch would have caught up with him.

54

24 December

In New York, Triumph Jones was watching the television news, dumbstruck. Meanwhile, in London, Farina Ahmadi had been about to catch a plane for Turkey to meet up with her husband and sons, but was staring, incredulous, at her iPad. In Tokyo, Jobo Kido was hunched over his computer, ignoring his wife’s phone calls and staring at the screen.

All three dealers were reacting to the new entry on the Vespucci site, an entry which had now become breaking news worldwide, the police caught off guard in the USA, Italy and Japan –

PRICELESS TITIAN PAINTING OF ANGELICO

VESPUCCI OFFERED AS REWARD FOR

IDENTITY OF SERIAL KILLER …

‘Look at this!’ Gaspare shouted, calling for Nino. ‘God, you won’t believe it.’

Staring at the TV screen, Nino blew out his cheeks. ‘He’s upped the bloody ante. The bastard thinks he’s untouchable. You know what he’s doing, don’t you? He’s got bored with just copying Vespucci – he wants to outdo him.’

‘But he’s putting the reward on his own head!’ Gaspare replied, his tone baffled. ‘Everyone will be after it.’

‘Yeah, but he’s got the Titian, so he figures that no one can find it.’ Nino moved over to the computer and typed in angelicovespucci.1555.com. Immediately the press release came up, followed by a banner headline.

The last murder committed by Angelico Vespucci was on the 1st January 1556

Turning the computer towards Gaspare, he pointed to the screen. ‘Look at that. He’s advertising. He’s tipping everyone off, telling them he’s going to kill again. And when he’s going to kill again. No one’s going to miss this now. Not with that press release. It’ll go worldwide.’

‘And someone will connect the murders.’

‘I’m amazed they haven’t already,’ Nino remarked. ‘It was only because they were committed in different countries that the connection wasn’t made before. But they’ll join up the dots now.’

‘It might help,’ Gaspare said hopefully. ‘It might put women on their guard.’

‘Every woman on earth?’ Nino queried. ‘It might have worked if it had just been London but the murder could take place anywhere. It could be Italy, Tokyo, London. It could be one of the places he’s hit before, or somewhere new. The woman he’s got in mind could be working, travelling, or asleep in bed. She could be anyone.’ Exasperated, he ran his hands through his hair. ‘One week to go, and I’m no nearer to knowing who she is. Someone must be able to tell me something.’

‘Forget Vespucci for a moment,’ Gaspare said calmly. ‘Think of what else they have in common.’

‘The victims were all young and white. They all had jobs.’

‘Go on.’

‘Go on?’ Nino snapped. ‘That’s it! That’s all I know.’

‘So think about the ways they differed.’

‘What?’

‘Just do it!’

Nino closed his eyes to concentrate. ‘Seraphina was married, and pregnant—’

‘With a child that wasn’t her husband’s.’

‘Yeah. Sally Egan was single, childless and promiscuous. Harriet Forbes was single, childless and gay.’ He opened his eyes and turned to Gaspare, thinking aloud. ‘What if our killer’s judging them like Vespucci would have done?’

‘Go on.’

‘Then he’d see them as adulteress, whore, deviant.’

‘What’s missing?’

‘Happily married?’

Gaspare shook his head impatiently. ‘No, that wouldn’t be immoral! He’s copying the Italian, he thinks the victims are all whores, so what else would he consider immoral? Don’t think about it as we do now, think about it as it was in the past. What would have been judged immoral then?’

Sitting down, Nino thought back over everything he’d discovered, then nodded.

‘She’s a mistress. A woman who sleeps with another woman’s husband—’

‘Yes, that would make sense!’

‘Our next victim’s a kept woman, Gaspare. Bought and paid for.’ His excitement rose. ‘She’s young, she has a job, she’s white, and she’s someone’s mistress. And unless I find her, she’s only got seven days left to live.’

55

Norfolk, 25 December

It was uncharitably cold as Nino arrived in Norfolk and headed for Courtford Hall, parking the car outside the gates and walking up to the house. Ice crackled under his feet and the imposing front door was bleached with frost as he lifted the knocker and rapped loudly.

It was Christmas Day, but there was no sign of it – no festive wreath, no tree, no decorations or lights, and when a lamp went on inside it shone disconsolately through the glass bullseye in the door. Finally there was a shuffle of feet, then the sound of the bolt being drawn back, and suddenly Nino was face to face with Sir Harold Greyly.

‘What?’ he asked, his tone slurred, his usual composure giving way to the demeanour of a drunk. ‘What d’you want?’ He blinked, standing up straight and staring at Nino as he pointed to his head. ‘I know you. You’re the man with all that white hair. You came here before …’ He was holding a glass in his hand, tilting it so that some of the whisky dripped on to the flagstone floor.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure, sure,’ Greyly said, too drunk to remember their previous acrimony.

Nudging Nino’s back, he pushed him towards the sitting room, a fire banked high in the grate, fruitwood logs smelling of summer. But the walls were bare of cards or any other ornament and several dirty plates lay by the fire. Sir Harold Greyly had eaten, obviously, but not cleared up, the same fork pressed into service for every meal.

‘Happy Christmas. It is Christmas Day, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, it’s Christmas Day.’

‘You got nowhere to go?’ he asked, his speech haphazard as he gestured to the drinks cupboard. ‘Fancy a tipple?’

Surprised, Nino shook his head. Was Harold Greyly really so drunk that he couldn’t remember what had happened when they last met?

‘Are you on your own?’

‘All on my own,’ Greyly snorted. ‘Christmas and all on my own. My wife and I – we had a fight you see …’

‘No staff here either?’

‘I gave them Christmas off,’ Greyly replied, smiling at his own largesse. ‘I didn’t need them anyway.’

He poured himself another drink and flopped into an armchair. At his feet, the springer spaniels shuffled about for room, finally curling up again closer to the fire. The wood crackled, sparks shooting up the chimney, the logs piled precariously high.

‘My wife left me. Said she hated me … Up and went. Kids all grown up, so now there’s no one left. ’Cept me,’ Greyly droned on, narrowing his eyes at Nino. ‘What did you come for?’

‘Now?’

‘Now, and back then. I know you’ve been here before, but I can’t remember why.’

Sighing, he slopped some of the booze on to his shirt and brushed it away. Despite the fire, the temperature in the room was chill, due to a draught coming from under the doorway which led into another room. A draught which suggested an open door beyond. Wary, Nino glanced around him, his gaze coming to rest on the drinks trolley. There were five bottles of whisky, three empty – and beside them was another glass which had been used recently.

‘You’ve had company?’

Greyly belched, patting his stomach, and pointed to a photograph of his wife and two sons. ‘They’ve gone—’

‘When?’

‘A week ago.’

‘Why did they go?’

‘Apparently I’m a pig. Come from a long line of pigs. Pig family. Only I’m a titled pig … A swine with a gong …’ Greyly replied insanely, slurring his words. But although he was drunk there was something else about him. Drugged? Nino wondered. Was he on drugs?

‘Are you ill?’

‘Pissed.’

‘Apart from that,’ Nino pressed him. ‘Have you been ill?’

Galvanised, Greyly leant forward in his chair, staring at Nino. ‘You came to the house with Hester – I remember now! She was a nosy old bat, but kind. She brought you here—’

‘That’s right.’

Greyly slumped back in his seat. ‘Hester’s dead now.’

‘I know – she fell.’

To Nino’s surprise, Greyly put his index finger to his lips, jerking his head towards the closed door.

Following has gaze, Nino glanced over. The draught still snaked from underneath. It was too cold, he realised – too cold for the temperature of a house. Someone had left the back door open. Someone who had left in a hurry. Someone who had watched him arrive and didn’t want to be seen.

‘Who’s been here?’

‘No one …’ Harold replied, picking at the corner of his left eye.

By his feet the dogs snuffled and shifted around in their sleep, the room morose and unwelcoming as Greyly carried on drinking. Nino could feel the cold slithering around him. Silently, he moved towards the door.

But as he reached it, Greyly shook his head.

‘No!’

Nino paused, turning back to him. ‘Who’s in there?’

‘No one.’

‘There are two used glasses, so you must have had company. You might still have company. Who is it?’

Teetering to his feet, Greyly grabbed Nino’s arm. His expression was fearful – even his drunkenness couldn’t disguise that.

‘There’s no one here. Sit down and have a drink with me.’ His grip increased on Nino’s arm. Even inebriated, he was very strong. ‘Sit with me! I’ve no one else. Fuck them all! I’ve no one left and it’s Christmas. I don’t like fucking Christmas anyway, all that posturing about. All that lord of the manor stuff.’ He burped acidly. ‘My wife’s wrecked everything, you know. All families have secrets – all families. But no, she couldn’t live with it. Cow …’ He dragged Nino away from the door, pushing him into the seat next to his. His condition was deteriorating rapidly, his attention wavering. It wasn’t just alcohol – there was something else. ‘You came to the house with Hester.’

‘Yes, I did,’ Nino agreed, leaning towards him. ‘And she wrote a letter to me, about Claudia. Claudia Moroni.’

Greyly’s eyes were half closed, the glass tilted, whisky dribbling on to the front of his trousers.

Taking the glass from him, Nino shook his shoulder. ‘Listen to me! I want to talk about Claudia Moroni.’

‘She’s dead too …’

‘I know,’ Nino replied, ‘but you remember her story, don’t you? Hester wrote and told me about her. About what happened to Claudia, why she had to leave England.’ He shook Greyly again, trying to regain his attention. ‘She was an ancestor of yours, and she was killed in Venice.’

His eyes widened, fixed on Nino, suddenly alert. ‘Venice?’

‘Yes, Venice. She was killed by Angelico Vespucci.’

Nino could see some semblance of coherence returning, but as it did so, he could feel a heightening of the draught coming from under the door, and he had the sudden and unpleasant sensation of someone having entered; someone who was now listening to their conversation.

‘Did someone come to see you today?’

‘I don’t know.’

Nino dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Did someone come to see you?’

‘No. No …’

‘Who was it?’

‘No one,’ Greyly blathered. ‘There was no one … no one … There’s no one left. No one …’ His voice slid off, his head sinking on to his chest as he passed out.

Uneasy, Nino stood up, looking around for anything he could use as a weapon. Picking up a poker from the grate, he moved silently towards the door and opened it, standing back in case anyone rushed out at him. But there was no one there, only the draught, coming stronger and stronger. Stealthily he passed through the library, moving into the kitchen beyond. The room was in semi-darkness, but there was enough light to see a door swinging open.

A door which led out into the yard beyond.

56

Rachel Pitt knew it wasn’t ideal, that he would probably never leave his wife. All married men said they loved you. That one day, when the time was right, they would tell their wives about you. Of course there never was a right time. If they ever did pick a day then one of the children would be ill, or the wife would be having a bad time at work, and he couldn’t, just couldn’t tell her now. He would, in time. But not this time.

It wasn’t as though Rachel hadn’t set deadlines over the previous two years. If he hasn’t left his wife by June, she swore, I’ll finish the relationship. But June always slid into July, then tripped the light fantastic down to Christmas. Which she always spent alone. A few times she had gone home, but her mother was divorced and Rachel could hardly see herself confiding. The grim reality of her mother’s life – of her hatred of men and her increasing isolation – served as a mirror to her own existence. Was this to be her lot? If her lover didn’t leave his wife, would she find herself too old and too bitter to find someone else?

There was no escaping the fact that she loved Michael and found snatching moments with him more palatable than having another man a hundred per cent of the time. Rachel had chosen her life, and she was sticking to it because the chance to walk away had passed. He was too close to her now. Too much a part of her. Too entrenched in her life to consider amputation. Everything she did she made a note of to tell him when they spoke. Her words, her actions, her thoughts centred around this one man who would never be hers.

Rachel had often wondered if she was a masochist. If she was, in some perverse way, punishing herself for some subconscious fault. Her appeal was obvious, so why attach herself to a man already attached? But she had stuck with Michael, even after she found out he was married. She should have walked away then, but he was charming and he made her feel secure and happy, and he understood her the way no other man had understood her before.

He was a marvellous lover too, and she knew that also kept her tied to him. And if, sometimes, she was jealous of his wife, he would reassure her. They hadn’t been sleeping together for years. She didn’t know him, love him as Rachel did. They stayed together for the children … Oh, she knew all the clichés by rote.

The same hackneyed phrases came out year after year, and even when Rachel ceased to believe them, she pretended she did. After all, the relationship wasn’t completely onesided. Michael had helped her out financially many times over the previous five years, and paid most of her rent. And when she had left her job and gone back to study full-time, he had supported her. Not that he couldn’t afford it. Being in banking he was rich enough to carry two women, even three. Even three … She wondered about that sometimes. If he could cheat on his wife, could he cheat on her? He travelled around the world – surely attractive women constantly crossed his path? Younger women, prettier women, women he hadn’t known for five years and become used to. Women fresh and flirty, who never thought about wives or children.

But Rachel did. It haunted her, the fact of his family. She might be able to dismiss his wife or count her as a harridan, but his children were omnipresent, a constant reminder of what she was doing. If the affair was ever discovered, she could imagine the fallout. The trauma for the children. The break-up of the marriage … No, who was she kidding? It would make the marriage stronger. Everyone knew how expensive divorce was, how prohibitive it was to split up shared properties, funds, bank accounts. And children. Whatever Michael promised her, whatever he assured her, he would stay with his family if it came to a choice. Men might like to stray, but in the end the duvet at home always sucked them back in.

Glancing back at her work table, Rachel noticed the time – nine p.m. Another evening spent alone. Why? She could be anywhere. She was moving in different circles, had studied theatrical design and contemporary playwrights, and was newly employed in a small London theatre. Assistant Stage Manager – maybe fully fledged, in time. But how much time? Did she really want ambition to dictate the way she lived? Did she want to be hanging about in dingy theatre wings while she waited for Michael’s texts, or his furtive, hurried phone calls?

And lately they had been so short-staffed at the theatre that Rachel had been asked to widen her scope. Already ASM, she was drafted in to help with the reading of all the plays submitted. She had never realised how many people wrote. Words, scenes, whole complete, fascinating existences captured on sheets of A4 paper. She had never realised how extraordinary some lives were, or could be. Some lives, even her life. If she had chosen differently.

The light was fading as she sat, fingering some papers and staring at the photograph of her lover. It was close to Christmas again. Close to the time when families came together, if only to fight. Close to the time when all the motorways, airports and shops would be blocked with activity and people getting busy for the holidays. But not her.

And she had only herself to blame.

So when the phone call came half an hour later to say that Michael would not be able to see her as arranged, Rachel was expecting it. Without rancour, she wished him a happy Christmas and rang off. For a while afterwards she stood looking around her, smiling bitterly at the decorations he would not see, the turkey he would not eat. The one she was going to have to put in the deep freeze for some other occasion he would dodge. Slamming the freezer door closed, Rachel walked into the bedroom and realised that nothing would make her spend another Christmas there. Not alone. Not again.

In less than an hour she had packed and hired a car, a small Renault she could easily drive. Rachel Pitt was going to take herself away for the holidays. Away from her lover, her mother, her phone, the television, internet and newspapers.

She needed time to think. And she needed to think alone.

Venice, 1555

Pomponio came to his father’s house around midnight on the 26th of December. He came with his shoulders rounded, wearing priest’s vestments, a hood over his head. It was raining heavily, so heavily the water skittled from the roofs and splattered into the bloated canals below. A moon, white and round as a milk penny, glowered in the icy sky.

The fog had been gone for several days. In its stead came a cold so punishing Venetians stayed in their homes, the sky crackling with stars, a comet flying low over the Doge’s Palace. It was an omen, they said. After three months, after three killings, there was always talk of omens. Of death, of weather that had already taken many of the old.

The cold came like another plague, but no fever this time; this was a sickness which sank into the bone, smothered all heat from the blood, bled down the flesh, and crept out through a hundred doors laden with souls too young for St Michael.

Terrified, fleeing for his safety, Pomponio had returned to his father’s house, to the place from which had exiled himself, scurrying like a poor rat in through the studio doors. I left them together, could not watch. I, who have watched so much, could not look upon this.

The previous night the mob had turned their footsteps away from Vespucci’s house. Instead they came, quiet, respectful but accusing, and stood at Titian’s gates. There were no shouts, no calls for blood: only a dreadful silence under that sickened moon.

They came as though beguiled, as though Aretino’s accusation had made a truth of it. As though the feckless Pomponio could become a devil overnight. He, who could barely bait a cat, was suspected as the killer. The Skin Hunter of Venice, the man who had made cowards of us all.

And inside, Pomponio hid like a child behind a studio screen, his monk’s shoes sodden with water, stained dark as blood.

He pleaded his innocence, which was what we knew. And those were the last words I heard as I left, making for a house on the Grand Canal. There I stood and watched the high barred windows of Aretino’s home, and knew he suffered. Not as a kindly man, but as one seen in his true colours. As one judged brutal in his arrogance. Terrible in his cowardice. A man who thought it fair to sacrifice another’s child, to barter an innocent for his own ends.

Titian has dismissed him. He has closed his doors to a man he once treasured, to a friend he once loved. His heart is shuttered against him. And the love he once bore for this most odious of men is curdled. In grace did Titian curse him. In defence of his son, he called the gods down on the writer’s head. He held his hands, palms up, and asked if there was anything he had ever refused to give. His purse, his home, his food, his name.

His name … On saying it, Titian seemed to pause, to count the wisdom of its loan. To wonder at his own naive and reckless trust.

And I had watched it all. Watched Aretino buckle like a lame donkey under its master’s whip. I saw him realise that all the lies were recognised and others suspected … He recoiled from the painter’s anger and lost his footing on the step, his bulk driving him backward to the floor. For a moment he had looked as though he thought a hand might be offered to help him. But none was.

Instead Titian turned and spoke no more.

I saw him broken, Pomponio following his father from the room. And struggling to his feet again was Aretino – cowed, humiliated, seen for the evil he was.

And this time he saw me. After so many years waiting, with so little power, so minute a chance of revenge, I faced him. I had been a nothing in his eyes, but I remained within the artist’s grace while he was banished. And I, who had waited so long on the moment, thrilled to the sight of his defeat.

He lumbered to the door, turned, and took long stock of me, as though to threaten. Then he left and made for Vespucci’s house. His power gone, the scapegoat failed, he went to the only person who would still receive him. As the doors closed behind Aretino, a cry went up from across the water. A woman’s cry, hardly more than the screech of an owl.