Deep and Silent Waters

Clea hadn’t been so lucky, or so sensible, however you liked to look at it. She’d been used, abused, passed around like a joint at Hollywood parties. The whole world knew the famous story of the party to which she had gone naked, except for a fabulously valuable black mink wrap, to save the men the trouble of undressing her.

‘I’m your birthday present,’ she told her host, pivoting on one toe. ‘No need for a bed. Just lay me down on the the floor.’

By the time she arrived the guests had been stoned or drunk. They had stood in a circle, clapping and shouting encouragement, as their host had pushed her down on to the marble floor, spread the mink as a mattress, and fucked her while she screamed with laughter until she went into wild, convulsive orgasm, excited by the audience as much as by the sex itself. Clea had always loved to be watched, whatever she was doing.

He closed his eyes, pushing away the image. She was dead. Gone. For ever. But he couldn’t forget her. He tried hard enough, God knew, but nobody would let him. The media brought up her name every time he was mentioned. Clea, Clea, Clea. He was sick of having it all dragged up, sick of the guesswork, the hints and implications, the guilt trip laid on him without any of them knowing what had really happened the day she fell.

No, no, no.

He could almost hear her scream the words again, as she tumbled like a dying bird, down through the bright air to the hard, unrelenting earth.

Had Laura felt that Clea was up there, looking down at them?

He felt a stir in the café and opened his eyes. Customers at other tables were staring out of the misty windows into the square because people were running past, shouting, pointing, away from the canal, to the far end of the square. Sebastian craned his neck.

Laura! he thought. Someone must have recognised her. Hadn’t he told her not to walk here, all alone, from Ca’ d’Angeli? Didn’t she know the Venetian papers had been full of the fact that she was going to star in The Lily? As the book was set largely in Venice everyone here was fascinated by the filming of it. Her picture had dominated the front pages ever since the first of the film crew arrived.

Leaping to his feet he dropped some money on the table and hurried out, only to walk straight into Sidney, who clutched his arm and blurted out, ‘Laura – she’s been—’ He was breathing hard as if he had been running and, for a second or two, couldn’t finish the sentence.

‘What? What?’ Sebastian demanded. ‘Where is she? What’s happened?’

‘St-st-stabbed,’ Sidney got out, and another fleeting image of Clea falling, screaming, flew into Sebastian’s mind. Of his mother dying in the misty waters of the Grand Canal.

He was suddenly icy cold. I’m cursed, he thought. Everyone I ever love dies suddenly, violently.

‘Is she—’ Dead, he thought. She’s dead. She has to be.

Sidney was almost in tears. ‘God, Sebastian, there’s blood everywhere, poor girl. Why would anyone do that to her?’

Sebastian began to run through the hazily lit square, following everyone else. Sidney followed him, his breathing shot to pieces.

‘Turn – l-left, down the alley – as if you’re going to San Moise, that church – amazing gargoyle of a place,’ he panted.

‘You’ll have a heart attack if you keep talking and running at the same time,’ Sebastian yelled, over his shoulder. ‘Stop for a minute, get your breath back.’

A second later, he saw the crowd, huddled together, like sheep, not knowing what to do.

A couple of Carabinieri were pushing back the crowds. He heard their raised voices. ‘Prego … prego, signori … Non spingete … Passare avanti, signori …’

The chugging of an engine made the crowd stir, then comment noisily, ‘They’re coming … the ambulance …’

It was in sight on the back canal: faded cream paint, a sandy brown stripe along the side, the ambulancemen in their orange jackets at the wheel.

Sebastian put on speed to get to Laura before the ambulance did.

The Carabinieri moved to push him back, then recognised him, permitted him to go through, to kneel down beside Laura’s body.

He gasped when he saw her face. ‘What the hell is that?’ It hadn’t been painted silver, mauve, green and black when he left her in Ca’ d’Angeli – how long ago? Half an hour? Three-quarters?

The zigzags of colour made her look like an alien, a beautiful, strange creature from another planet – if he had passed her on the street he might not have known her. Her eyes were shut, the lids pale green, her breath coming through lips so colourless they were almost white under the sheen of silver covering them, except for spots of blood where she had bitten down and torn her flesh.

Sebastian drew a short, choked breath.

Look at all that blood. Sidney had said there was blood everywhere and he was spot on. Sebastian thought, as he had the day Clea fell to her death, that blood was redder than you expected it to be. Such a bright colour, puddled here like spilt wine, on the broken paving stones, on her clothes, her face, her neck. There was blood everywhere.

Was she dying, right here, in front of him?

He groaned, and at the sound her eyes opened wide, fiercely green in the light of the street-lamp. They had the glare of a wild cat’s eyes when it scents d