The Venice Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

unfriendly gods, or even stories of unfriendly gods. Do I make myself clear?’
    ‘What would you have me sacrifice and to whom? Perhaps three different animals, all in honour of the trinity, Uni, Tinia and Menrva?’
    Pesna snaps. He grabs the seer by the front of his tunic. ‘In the name of all the deities, just do your job, man! Do I have to think
for
you? Sacrifice women and children – I don’t care, provided it works.’ He pushes him away. ‘Don’t fail in this. I warn you, if you fail me, then next time I send Larth for you, it will be to have him vent my dissatisfaction upon your body.’

CHAPTER 7

    Present Day
    Rio di San Giacomo Dell’Orio, Venice
    The Carabinieri arrive by boat, silent and solemn beneath a dawn sky the colour of beef Carpaccio.
    Smart young officers pull on peaked caps and adjust white-holstered Berettas as they climb from the craft.
    Tom watches them rolling out crime-scene tapes, taking notes, doing the same things that cops do all over the world. Back in Compton he regularly saw the LAPD mopping up after the latest drive-by, the detritus of drug warfare and social failure.
    It turns out that the oldman who discovered the body is called Luigi. He’s a retired fishmonger in his seventies who suffers from insomnia and poor English. After leaving Tom with the body, he’d almost banged the hinges off the door of a nearby house to get someone to call the cops and a water ambulance.
    Tom kneels by the corpse and blesses himself. It’s an automatic reaction. Although he no longer has the power to administer Extreme Unction, the words still come.
    ‘Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.’
    He kisses his closed thumb and forefinger and gently crosses the victim’s forehead.
    By the look of it she’s about seventeen. It’s hard to be more specific. Someone’s really gone to town on her with a knife. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of stab marks all over her body. Chunks of flesh are missing. Her face ravaged by death. The multiplicity of wounds is strange. So many. Seemingly random – yet no doubt all part of some pattern in the killer’s mind.
    ‘Signor, could you come with us, please?’
    The voice is firm – an instruction, not a request
–
made in good English by a young officer, radio in hand. Tom hears him through an echoing tunnel – his focus still on the work of evil in front of him.
    ‘Signor, please!’
    Tom feels a hand under his elbow. Helping him up. Or is it to prevent him running? The thought startles him. ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘To the Carabinieri offices. Not far from here. Near the Rialto. We need to get a full statement.’
    ‘We can’t do it here?’ Tom does a one-eighty turn to see if there are more senior officers to appeal to.
    ‘Signor,
please.
It will not take long.’ The hand on the elbow is firmer now. Expert pressure. Persuasive. Unyielding.
    ‘Hey!’ Tom shakes off the white-gloved fingers. ‘You needn’t get a hold of me.’ He brushes his arm as though rubbing dirt from a best suit. ‘I’m fine to come, I want to help.’
    All eyes are on them. A slightly older officer moves their way, unbuttoning his holster as he does. Someone lifts the fluttering crime-scene tape.
    Tom Shaman suddenly wishes he’d stayed in bed that morning. In fact, right now, he wishes he’d never come to Venice in the first place.

CHAPTER 8

    Major Vito Carvalhowatches his men lead Tom away.
    Another murder is the last thing the fifty-year-old wanted. He’d transferred to Venice to avoid this kind of thing. Moved here to unwind and relax, not be a hotshot with a desk stacked high with files and riddles.
    ‘What have we got?’ he calls to two young lieutenants by the canal edge.
    Valentina Morassi and Antonio Pavarotti are cousins, the kind that come from big families and have been close ever since they reached the age