Deep and Silent Waters

Venice, 1998

Sebastian was already in Venice. The day after he arrived, he met the police adviser on the film, Captain Saltini of the Vigili Urban, the Venetian municipal police.

The Vigili Urban were in charge of local bylaws and traffic control; their co-operation was essential if the film-making process was to be trouble-free, so Sebastian had invited the Captain to meet him for lunch at the luxurious Hotel Europa, on the Grand Canal, a short walk from San Marco. He wanted to talk through the script and discuss the problems involved in shooting outdoors in Venice.

‘At this time, with all this snow, not so many worries with sightseers, just the paparazzi,’ the policeman promised. He spoke in English and his accent, though thick, was perfectly comprehensible. ‘Until the carnival starts mid-week, and then there will be a whole bag of students and tourists arriving. It’s always bad weather here in February, not a good time for being out in the streets, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone, even when the Piazza San Marco is several feet under water and it’s snowing.’

Sebastian laughed. ‘Don’t you wish you were twenty again? I know I do.’

Captain Saltini, a tall, commanding-looking man with a swarthy skin and greying dark hair, gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t we all?’

Sebastian picked up his script. ‘It’s the carnival I’m here to shoot, the dancing, the costumes, outdoor scenes. I want to capture the atmosphere by using the actual crowds in the streets.’

‘Yes, yes, I understand, and that’s okay, so long as they agree to let you film them – but you mustn’t film anyone who objects.’

‘You’ll be on hand to talk to them for us?’

The policeman, in his immaculate dark blue uniform, gave him a cynical smile. ‘Sure, sure, that’s my job, but I’m not leaning on anyone for you. I don’t want to find myself falling foul of the Carabinieri.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to,’ Sebastian said. ‘They’re tough boys and we don’t want any trouble with them.’

The armed officers of the Carabinieri, in their navy blue uniforms with red-striped trousers and peaked caps, were responsible for public law and order, and separate from the Vigili Urban. No doubt there was occasional friction between the two forces when their jurisdicti

ons collided. The last thing Sebastian wanted was to upset either of them.

‘Please, just be around when we need you,’ he asked Captain Saltini, as the waiter removed their cheese plates. ‘Shall we have some brandy with our coffee? Or do you prefer another liqueur?’

‘Brandy for me, grazie.’

A few minutes later, holding his brandy up to the light and staring out at the snowlit Grand Canal through the glass, Sebastian said casually, ‘My mother drowned out there, in the canal, you know.’

The other man nodded, eyes sympathetic. ‘I remember.’

Giving him a sharp glance, Sebastian asked, ‘Were you a policeman then?’

Another nod. ‘Only just – it was my first year and I wasn’t sure I liked the job.’ Saltini grinned, showing yellow teeth. ‘I’m still not sure. I’d have liked to be a film director.’ He laughed, to show it was a joke, and Sebastian laughed, too.

‘In some ways the jobs aren’t so very different,’ he said. ‘You need to be observant, quick-witted, a bit ruthless, and pretty tough to do either. Tell me, would the file on my mother’s accident still be in existence, or do they trash old files after a certain time?’

‘These days, no, everything is on computer. But thirty years ago we put everything on paper and files do get lost. But I could look for you, if you like?’ The policeman gazed out of the bar window at the snow-veiled canal. ‘Not my department, of course, but my brother’s a senior officer in the State Police. They deal with serious crime, and I think the accident was handled as a possible murder. I’ll ask if he can get me a photocopy of the file on your mother’s death. After all this time the file may have been destroyed, though.’ His eyes were shrewd. Lowering his voice, he murmured, ‘You know, there was something fishy about that case, but as they never found who was in the other boat they never came up with any answers. In the end it was put down as an accident and the file was closed, but I remember a lot of whispering.’

Sebastian kept his own voice low, and watched Captain Saltini closely. ‘The other day someone here told me that people thought somebody wanted the Count dead, that it was murder, not an accident.’

‘Si, I heard that, but nobody knows who or why and, after all these years, well…’ The policeman shrugged. ‘No chance of any new answers.’ His dark eyes surveyed Sebastian thoughtfully. ‘If that is what you’re looking for?’

He was smart, thought Sebastian. ‘I’m just curious. I was only six at the time and my father never talked about it, so I really know nothing about what happened, and I’d like to find out exactly how my mother died.’

‘That’s natural,’ Captain Saltini agreed. ‘In your place, so would I.’ He glanced at his watch and pushed back his chair. ‘I’m sorry, I have an appointment at three, I must go. I’ll try to get a copy of that file for you and let you have it tomorrow.’

Sebastian shook hands with him and walked him to the hotel door, said goodbye and went back into the bar. He stood at the window, watching curled flakes of snow flying past like goose feathers.

The weather had been exactly like this on the day his mother had died. As he continued to stare out at the Grand Canal, he could almost hear the crashing, the screams, the splash. He closed his eyes, feeling again the terror and misery he had felt all those years ago as he stood on the landing stage in front of Ca’ d’Angeli, listening to his mother die while the Contessa watched and listened above his head.

Suddenly he realised he had always blamed the Contessa, without ever thinking about it. As a child of six he couldn’t have put it into words but, instinctively, he had feared and disliked La Contessa.

He still did.

By the time Laura flew into Venice the production crew had already been at work for some days. Ca’ d’Angeli was littered with equipment, cables snaking across the floors, the great arc-lights, under their hoods, waiting to be put into position. A carpenter was busy laying a hardboard track on which they could nail the camera dollies, so that the marble and parquet floors would not be scratched, broken or marked in any way. A girl in a tracksuit and big, bulky sweater went backwards and forwards with an automatically rewinding tape measure, checking distances and scribbling notes in her spring-backed pad, while Sidney and Sebastian stood beside one of the gilt-framed mirrors, so absorbed that they didn’t notice Laura’s arrival.