Deep and Silent Waters

‘No. Never. When you’re ninety you’ll still be lovely. It’s your cheekbones and the way your eyes are set in your head. Your bone structure is ravishing. I may draw your skeleton, leave out all the flesh.’

She burst out laughing. ‘How gruesome! You have the strangest mind.’

‘And you have the most beautiful body.’ He sat up, knelt to take her hand, stretched out the fingers on his palm. ‘Even your hands are a work of art.’

‘Thank you, but I was not the artist.’

‘No, that was God, the greatest artist of us all.’

‘You believe in God?’

He looked up at her, dark eyes clear. ‘Of course. Don’t you?’

‘I used to, but I’m no longer sure.’ She remembered Valerie, broken on the stone terrace in front of Ca’ d’Angeli with the golden archangels staring solemnly down at her.

Niccolo kissed her fingers one by one. ‘Don’t cry.’

She only realised she was crying when he said it. Pulling her hands away she found a paper handkerchief and dried her eyes, blew her nose.

He watched her, concerned. ‘I’m sorry, the last thing I meant to do was upset you. The police talked to me about the woman who killed herself the other day. Is it true that it was her who stabbed you?’

She nodded.

‘So she was not your friend.’

Laura laughed feverishly. ‘That’s a charming way of putting it. She hated me.’

‘She was crazy, obviously.’

‘She was very sick.’

‘Then you must not be sad. She couldn’t have been happy. Maybe now she’s dead she’s happier.’

She gave him a dry glance. ‘Somehow I don’t find that very comforting.’

They were both silent, then he said, ‘When the inquest is over, you will go home to England?’

‘Yes, as soon as I’ve finished filming a couple of scenes for Sebastian. I haven’t done any work since I got here and it’s essential that I shoot the scenes I was scheduled for.’

‘Please, come back to Ca’ d’Angeli in the summer. I wouldn’t want you to have only bad memories of my house, and I’d like to show you more of Venice.’

‘That’s very kind, but—’

‘Also I still want you to pose for me as the female David. I’ve made a number of sketches from the photos I took and I’m eager to start work – but I need you, I can’t work exclusively from photos. I need to touch, you see, to feel the dimensions of what I’m working on.’ He flexed his hands, the strong, tanned fingers eloquent, knelt up and framed her face, holding and touching, caressing all at once.

The hair on the back of Laura’s neck bristled. Someone was watching. She felt it, as she had felt it once before. She looked up instantly, and saw the glassy, gleaming eye in the ceiling staring back at her.

A scream broke out of her and a second later the human eye was gone, replaced by the flat, painted one.

‘Dio!’ Niccolo was so startled he lapsed into Italian, talking fast, looking anxiously at her.

She didn’t understand a word. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Why did you scream like that? I wouldn’t hurt you – I’d never hurt you.’

The door was flung open. Laura looked across the room as Sebastian rushed in. She was both relieved and alarmed to see him.

‘What’s going on in here?’ It wasn’t a question so much as a threat. ‘What did he do to you?’ He moved fast towards them and Niccolo stood up, squaring his shoulders as if ready for a fight.