Deep and Silent Waters

Laura giggled. ‘Come on. We’d better go before you try and grab one!’

As they walked out Laura looked at the large wicker basket her friend was carrying. ‘What have you bought?’

‘Some ravishing red Venetian glass, made at Murano. Do you know, they were making glass in the thirteenth century?’

‘I hope they packed it well. You don’t want it getting broken en route. I wouldn’t fancy its chances bumping along the conveyor belts at Heathrow.’

‘I’ll carry it myself.’ Melanie looked at her watch. ‘Look, I don’t want to hang around St Mark’s Square all afternoon. I’m going to explore more shops.’

‘What else do you want to get?’

‘Some prosciutto, some squid-flavoured pasta – and you can get little bottles of pear and lime liqueur here that are supposed to be terrific.’

‘You could buy all of that in Harrods,’ Laura said.

Melanie gave her a furious look, her lower lip stuck out like a petulant baby’s. ‘It wouldn’t be the same. And it would cost more. Imported food always does. Anyway, I like to buy stuff in the country of origin, it makes it special. When you eat it you can remember your holiday.’

As they emerged from the basilica Laura blinked in the fierce light of the sun. The enormous square was still crowded with tourists although it was now late afternoon. She put her dark glasses back on just in case there was a reporter or cameraman around. The sun poured down relentlessly, making her head ache after the cool shadows of the basilica.

‘Coming with me?’ asked Melanie. ‘Shouldn’t you buy presents for your parents, Angela and Hamish and the brats?’

‘I can do that tomorrow morning, early, when it isn’t so hot. Right now, I’m dying to sit down. I’ll find somewhere nice and quiet in the shade. You can meet me again at that café under the arcade – it’s bound to be cool. We don’t want to sit outside in the sun, even if the tables do have umbrellas. And I think it’s more atmospheric. I love those cloudy old mirrors on the walls.’ Laura gazed across the square into Florian’s, her eyes dreamy. ‘You can’t see yourself in them, but they seem to reflect other faces from long ago, strange shapes that keep changing, eyes that watch you. D’you know what I mean?’

‘No, you’re just crazy,’ Melanie said with the impatience of the practical for dreamers. ‘Now, don’t get lost! Remember, anyone will show you the way back here, okay? And keep your eye on your watch. Five o’clock, okay? If you don’t show I’m going back to the hotel without you.’

They parted and Laura tried to get a table at Florian’s, but none was free. She wandered off into a quiet, shady square nearby, bought some postcards, then sat down at a street café under an awn

ing, ordered iced tea and settled down to write to her family. She would go back to St Mark’s at five o’clock.

Sebastian had come over to the city, too, but he had taken a vaporetto, which moved more slowly and stopped frequently, giving him a chance to reorientate himself in the city he found instantly familiar, even though nearly thirty years had passed since he had last seen it. Of course, he had been reminded of it over the years, on film and in books. The image of Venice was universal, a dream all men dreamt.

When he set out he had had no plans. As he stopped at the hotel desk to hand in the key of his suite, Valerie Hyde came up behind him. ‘Going out? Want any company?’

He turned sharply to look at her. ‘Oh, hi. Actually, I meant to leave you a message. Will you do some research for me? My mother died here and I’ve always meant to check up on the details. Can you go through the back files of the local paper for me?’ He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘I’ve written her name and the date on here. If you can get them, I’d like photocopies of any news items covering the story, or the inquest.’

Valerie glanced at the handwritten note. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘Just the facts. She drowned. I want to know how or why and if anyone else was involved.’

She looked up and stared at him with narrowed eyes. ‘It isn’t always wise to dig up the past.’

‘Just do it, Val,’ he said curtly. ‘See you later.’

On impulse he disembarked from the vaporetto in the Castello district, on the paved quayside called the Riva degli Schiavoni, at the landing-stage for the church of San Zaccaria Pièta. He did not want to get involved with the hordes of tourists that filled the further end of the Riva degli Schiavoni where it met St Mark’s Square.

He had played with the idea of visiting Ca’ d’Angeli that afternoon, but once he got off the boat his courage failed. He was afraid of what he would find, dreading that a child’s memory would prove false, that the great golden palace of his dreams would be just another crumbling old house without any of the heartstopping beauty he remembered.

The Castello district was a less visited area of the city, although there were always tourists drifting about on the quayside, and stalls selling souvenirs and maps. As a child Sebastian had known this part of the city well. He walked now in a sort of trance, hardly knowing what he was doing, but along a route he had followed before, in another life, moving slowly through a narrow arch, along a shadowy alley, into a square in front of a great Renaissance church.

The weather was typical of the sweltering heat of an Italian August, the hot air so still that it moved not a leaf on the trees he walked beneath. Trees were rare in Venice, but this district had a park-like feel to it. The smell of the canals made his nose wrinkle in distaste. In Venice you were never far from water. The Grand Canal lay behind him and at one point he caught a glimpse of a small side canal; aquamarine sunlit water between crumbling, fading red-brick walls in which there were small, barred windows high up, with strings of washing hung out from one side of the canal to the other.

‘Rio del Vino,’ he said aloud, amazed to find the name coming up out of the past, and with it a memory of his mother telling him that name every time they came here.

‘Why is it called the wine river, Mamma?’

‘Because this is where wine was brought up from the docks, Sebastian.’ She had had a beautiful voice, sweet as honey, low and soft, intensely female.

He had looked across at the red-brick walls thoughtfully. ‘Or maybe because the reflection of the walls sometimes makes the canal look like red wine?’