There was no sign of anything else nearby. Laura sighed with relief. ‘Where’s he going to, I wonder?’ she asked Sebastian who didn’t answer.
A moment later, Niccolo ran out of the house and shouted after the gondola. ‘What was that noise? Where are you going at this hour, Antonio?’
The Contessa sat under the hood of the gondola, her body slumped sideways, head leaning against the side, a few strands of hair blowing in the wintry wind.
‘She’s sitting in an odd way,’ Sebastian said, opening the window to see better.
‘Antonio, come back here!’ shouted Niccolo. ‘Mamma! What are you up to?’
There was no answer from her nor did Antonio look round or register that he had heard Niccolo. He stood in the gondola, poling strongly out into the Grand Canal. There were almost no other vessels in sight, just a vaporetto chugging in the distance, heading towards St Mark’s Square.
Sebastian drew a sudden, audible breath. ‘She looks as if … Do you think she’s asleep? Why is she slumped against the side of the hood like that?’
The gondola tossed on the choppy waves, half-turned, so that, in a shaft of dying sunlight Laura could see the Contessa’s face. The eyes were closed, the skin pale. The body was slack, collapsed. Laura shivered.
‘She looks ill.’
Sebastian gripped the iron latch of the window, his knuckles white. ‘No. She looks as if she’s dead.’
Antonio stopped rowing near the centre of the canal. He bent, for a few minutes, then tossed a large metal can overboard.
‘Oh, my God!’
‘What was it, Sebastian?’
‘A petrol can.’
Antonio sat down beside the Contessa, and put one arm around her waist, drew her head down on to his shoulder, stroked her spilling hair. With his other hand he threw something along the gondola.
Instantly there was a rush, a loud explosion.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Sebastian muttered.
The night sky was lit with a brilliance that dazzled. Sparks flew in all directions, like fireworks. The gondola and its passengers were consumed by crimson and orange flames that climbed up into the darkening sky while the archangels and cherubim watched from the golden walls of Ca’ d’Angeli.