Vengeance in Venice

by Philip Gwynne Jones

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

'An unputdownable thriller' Gregory Dowling

'It is no surprise to find that Philip Gwynne Jones lives in Venice... art and architecture interweave into a story that builds to an almost surreal climax' Daily Mail

*****

Murder is the deadliest art . . .

An invitation to an exclusive event during the Venetian Biennale gives Honorary Consul Nathan Sutherland the perfect chance to drink prosecco in the sunshine and meet some of the greats of the art world.

And then a world-famous critic is decapitated by one of the installations in the British Pavilion. A terrible accident, it seems, until a postcard is discovered in the victim's pocket: an image of Judith beheading Holofernes.

But this is not just a one-off. Before long, three more postcards have been sent out with deadly results. As the bodies pile up, Nathan finds himself getting closer and closer to the truth, but when he himself receives an image of Death bearing a scythe, it becomes a race against time to save his own life . . .

*****

Praise for Philip Gwynne Jones

'Superb — always gripping, beautifully constructed and vivid' Stephen Glover

'Clever and great fun' The Times

'Sinister and shimmering, The Venetian Game is as haunting and darkly elegant as Venice itself' L.S. Hilton, bestselling author of Maestra

'The Venetian setting is vividly described... good, fluid writing makes for easy reading' Literary Review

'Un-put-downable . . . If you love Venice, you'll love this because you'll be transported there in an instant. If you've not been to Venice, read this book and then go. If you like intrigue, and a clever plot, you'll love this book' Amazon reviewer, 5*****

Release date: April 12, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

Gramsci hopped down from his window seat, padded across my desk and sat down on the keyboard. He prodded me in the chest and gave a little meep of satisfaction. Look at me. What a brilliant cat I am.

I stared at him, and then at the screen, which was now filling up with a succession of letter Ts. I pushed him off, and rested my finger on the backspace key until I’d erased what he’d done.

‘Look, I know it’s not the best thing I’ve ever written, okay?’ I scrolled to the top of the document and reread my afternoon’s work. He jumped on to the back of the chair in order to be able to look over my shoulder. I reached the end of the page and turned to look at him. ‘To be honest, I think you probably understand as much of this as I do.’

I checked my watch. Time was getting on. I’d got up far too late, and wasted most of the day. I was nursing a mild hangover, building up a backlog of work, and this particular translation really did have to be finished that day.

Years that ended in an odd number were always good ones for business. Almost every vacant space in the city was being used as a venue for the great art Biennale, and every exhibitor wanted English translation work. Translating from Spanish, Italian and French alone would be enough to make me comfortable for months to come.

Gramsci hopped down from the back of my chair and came to sit in front of the fan. He did this on a regular basis. I had no idea why, as he didn’t like it. He gave it two seconds, as he always did and then walked across the keyboard again. I sighed and looked at what he’d done. He sat down next to the monitor and stared at me.

I nodded. ‘You know, I think you might actually be on to something here.’ I read through the rest of my translation. ‘I mean, it actually makes as much sense as everything else. I think you’re getting better at this.’ I scratched him behind his ears which he tolerated for a few seconds before snapping at me. He was becoming sentimental in middle age.

I reread the document but found it difficult to keep my eyes from slipping off the words. My words. Or at least, my translation of Josè Rafael Villanueva’s. They sort of made sense in that they at least formed themselves into recognisable sentences and paragraphs but the meaning – and I was pretty sure there was a meaning to be found in there somewhere – refused to be grasped. And I’d written the bloody thing. What chance would other people have?

I sighed. How many of these things had I done in the past month? I was, of course, grateful for the mountain of work and yet I was starting to feel as if the more translations I worked on, the more I was losing my ability to speak my own language.

I printed it off, before realising that I hadn’t erased Gramsci’s key strokes. My finger hovered over the backspace key for a second, and then I stopped. I’d keep it as it was. Just to see if anybody noticed.

There had once been a time when I had loved the Venice Biennale, the great contemporary art exhibition that had run since the end of the nineteenth century (with a few short breaks for various unpleasant reasons). Every two years the great and not-so-great, good and not-so-good of the art world would make their way to the thirty national pavilions in the Giardini and the great exhibition spaces in the cavernous halls of the Arsenale. Almost every empty palazzo was pressed into service as a national pavilion for those who hadn’t got in at the beginning and been granted a space in the gardens. Long-disused churches were opened up for the purpose of displaying art. Many of those that were still in use took advantage of the money flowing in to the city to host artists’ works, subject, of course, to the work being of a suitably respectful nature. Between May and November, the city practically ate, slept and breathed contemporary art.

And I had loved it all. Ten years ago, when I had arrived in the city for the first time, I had spent the entire holiday moving from pavilion to palazzo to church in a Stendhal-like daze. It wasn’t all brilliant, of course. Over the years, I’d developed a rule of thumb that about ninety per cent was rubbish. But that still left a substantial body of work that was, at least, pretty good, and it was the possibility, however small, of every unvisited space hiding something genuinely fantastic that kept me moving onwards.

Then it became part of my job, and everything changed. Every day I would feel myself drowning in an ocean of almost unintelligible verbiage. Every year I seemed to write more and visit less. Everything was starting to feel stale and second-hand, and when I did visit the Giardini or Arsenale I felt myself in need of an emergency visit to the nearest church to look at a Titian or a Tintoretto. Even a Palma il Giovane would sometimes come as a blessed relief. I thought it was the fault of all the translation work. But I had to admit it was also possible that I was just becoming properly middle-aged.

The doorbell rang. Federica, of course. I buzzed her up. A hug and a kiss.

‘So, did you have a nice time with Dario last night?’

‘How did you know I was with Dario?’

She waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen. ‘An empty pizza box and a bottle of beer. Nowadays you only get a pizza after a night out with Dario. Secondly,’ and here she winced ever-so-slightly, ‘Blue Oyster Cult on the hi-fi. Again, you only play Blue Oyster Cult after a night out with Dario.’

‘That’s only because you won’t let me. But otherwise very good, dottoressa. Anything else?’

‘Well, yes. You rang me at about a quarter to one to tell me how much you loved me.’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah.’

There was an awkward silence. I scratched my head. ‘Yes. Yes, now you mention it, I do kind of remember that.’

‘Oh good. I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten.’

‘Did you have an early start today?’

‘Yes. As I told you last night.’

‘Ah. Sorry, I’m afraid that bit’s dropped off the end as well. Were you back at the Frari?’

‘Yes.’

‘On top of scaffolding? Very high up?’

‘Yes.’

‘The sort of thing you need a proper night’s sleep before?’

‘Yes.’

I nodded. ‘Sorry.’ I gave her what I hoped was my best disarming smile. ‘But it was kind of a cool thing to do, wasn’t it?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Really not cool at all.’ Then she gave up trying to look serious and smiled and touched my cheek. ‘But it was nice.’ She looked over at the desk. Gramsci, evidently worried about papers flying away in the breeze from the fan, had made himself a Useful Cat by sitting on top of them. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Busy. Busy busy busy. This stuff is hard work.’

‘I know. But still, it’s only for a few months. And the money’s good.’

‘Oh yes. I mean, I’m almost having to turn work away. But I don’t really enjoy it.’

She sniffed. ‘Come on, it’s got to be better than – what was the last thing you did – a frying-pan catalogue?’

‘Frying pans are fine. I know what they’re for. I even bought a few of them. In fact, the money I made on the translation I then immediately spent on buying the bloody things. But all this,’ I waved my hand in the direction of Gramsci and his pile of papers, ‘all this arty-farty stuff is doing my head in.’

‘Think of the money, tesoro. You’ll be able to take a month or two off after this. Maybe we can even go on holiday? And don’t say arty-farty, it makes you sound like a philistine. You’re not a philistine.’

‘I just don’t understand it. I’ve taken an unintelligible Spanish document and turned it into an unintelligible English one. Here, take a look at this.’ I pushed Gramsci off the stack, and grabbed Mr Villanueva’s abstract.

She took it from me and read for a few minutes. ‘Oh right, it’s about Chavez and the revolution.’

‘It’s the Venezuelan Pavilion. It’s always about Chavez and the revolution. But does it actually make any sense to you?’

She read on. ‘ “. . . thus Josè Rafael Villanueva’s installation refers back to classical Marxist theory of historical inevitability, whilst at the same time creating a new paradigm for a post-capitalist society. Dialectical materialism is dead. Long live bningydega.’ She wrinkled her forehead. ‘What’s bningydega?’

I smiled. ‘Gramsci did that. I think I’m going to leave it in.’

‘You’re not!’

‘Come on, he’s – what do you say – “made an intervention”. I think it’s rather good.’

She tried to look serious, failed again and laughed. ‘Okay. It’s funny. But you can’t leave it in. This is your job. And who’s that guy you know, the Venezuelan consul?’

‘Enrico.’

‘Enrico. He’s sort of a friend isn’t he? He could get into trouble if you let this go out.’

I sighed. ‘I know. You’re right.’ I sat down and pushed Gramsci away. Then I changed the word ‘bningydega’ to ‘dialectical materialism’ and printed the whole piece off once more. ‘I’ll send him a copy tonight and he can get some laminates made up for tomorrow if he wants.’

I powered down the computer. ‘And that, I think, is everything for today.’

‘Great. So what are we doing?’

‘I thought we might go downstairs to the Brazilians’ for a Negroni. And then I’ll cook dinner.’

‘Lovely. What are we having?’

‘Well it was going to be fish but, er, I didn’t make it to the market in time. I’ve got some aubergines and some peppers. A few tomatoes. Best Pasta Dish in the World Ever?’ I wandered through to the kitchen, and turned the oven on. ‘If I put the peppers in on the lowest setting they should be properly roasted by the time we get back. I don’t think there’s a risk of the house burning down. Unless it’s a multiple Negroni night, and I think we’re both too old for that now.’

She smiled. ‘Speak for yourself.’ Then she pulled me towards her and kissed me. ‘And I love you too, you know?’

Eduardo slid Federica’s drink across the bar, and then made to do the same with mine. Then he paused, and tilted his head to one side, looking me up and down. Then he turned to Federica.

‘He’s looking well, you know.’

She smiled. ‘He scrubs up well enough.’

‘You can see the difference. He looks like a new man.’

‘Well he’s cooking properly again. That must help.’

‘Not just that. He hardly has breakfast here any more. And those multi-Negroni nights . . . well, I don’t know if we’ll ever see them again. To be honest, takings are down. I might have to sell up.’

‘You can’t do that. You’re the nearest thing he has to a father confessor.’

I waved at them both. ‘I’m still here you know? And incidentally I have my cat to confess my numerous sins to.’

Ed passed my drink over to me. ‘So, still working hard for the Biennale, Nat?’

‘Yep. And likely to be for the next few months. The work for the national pavilions is done but there’s always a bit of work for small exhibitions and independent shows. They don’t pay that much, but they’re worth doing.’

‘And any free invites? Openings, meeting the celebrities – that sort of thing?’

‘Tomorrow morning. British pavilion at the Giardini. A lot of the big hitters are going to be there. Journalists, critics, the British ambassador’s coming up from Rome. The Biennale curator will probably drop by as well, what’s his name?’ I turned to Federica.

‘Scarpa. Vincenzo Scarpa.’

Ed shook his head. ‘I don’t know him.’

‘Neither do I,’ I said.

Federica sipped at her drink. ‘Very intelligent man. Ferociously intelligent, one might say. He’s also the rudest man in Italy.’

‘Wow.’ Eduardo and I answered as one.

‘Have you met him?’ I asked.

‘Once. At an opening nearly five years ago. He graced me with about thirty seconds of his precious time.’

‘You didn’t like him?’

‘There are two sorts of people in this world. Those who hate Vincenzo Scarpa and those who haven’t met him. Oh, and I suppose there’s his mother. Possibly.’

‘Blimey. You’re kind of putting me off the whole idea of tomorrow.’

She shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll need to get around most of the main pavilions. He’ll swan in for two minutes to be nasty to the artist, and then he’ll head off again. He probably won’t even speak to you.’

‘But I’m the honorary consul.’

‘Nathan, the rudest man in Italy works to a very tight schedule. If he has the chance of being rude to you or rude to the ambassador, who do you think he’s going to choose?’

My face fell. ‘I wish you were coming. I feel a bit scared now.’

‘No time, tesoro. Why didn’t you ask Dario?’

‘I did.’ She opened her mouth to speak but I interrupted. ‘I asked him after you told me you were busy, okay? But if he’s coming in to Venice in the morning he’d like to bring Valentina and Emily as well. Make a day of it.’

‘And you couldn’t get them a pass?’

‘The problem is little Emily. There’s a very strict no kids policy. No ifs, no buts.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Eduardo.

‘I don’t know. Probably something terribly naughty. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.’

Federica gave me a hard stare. I reached for my Negroni, and drained it. I checked my watch. ‘The peppers should be roasted by now. Let’s go and eat. I probably won’t see you tomorrow, Ed.’

His face fell. ‘But you do still love me, Nathan?’

‘You know I do, Ed.’

He grinned. ‘Have a good time, yeah?’

‘I’m sure I will. The best part of the Biennale is always the vernissage.’

It would have been nice to arrive by water taxi. In all my years in Venice I had never used one. There was something so grand, so sophisticated about the image of them, but they cost an arm and a leg, and occasionally another limb would need to be thrown in as a tip as well. It would, as usual, have to be a vaporetto. I made my way up to Rialto and realised I’d mistimed things.

The queue stretched out of the pontile and down as far the fondamenta. It was still early May but the weather was starting to get hot now and I really didn’t want to have to stand for the whole journey, away from any source of ventilation. What to do? I could get a coffee and wait for the next boat to pass and hope to be first in the line for the following one. I checked my watch. No time.

The part of the pontile reserved for those disembarking was enticingly empty. There was also a No Entry sign. You were not, under any circumstances, supposed to wait in that area. Except, of course, unless you really wanted to. Everybody did it, from time to time. In Through the Out Door, as Led Zeppelin would have said. I strode up as if it were the most natural thing in the world, parked myself on a metal trunk that the marinai used for storage, took out my newspaper and pretended to read in order to shield myself from any accusing stares. It would, almost certainly, be all right.

It wasn’t. An elderly lady with a shopping trolley started haranguing me as soon as I sat down. ‘Signore! Signore! ’

I pretended not to have heard, and buried my head in the football results. ‘Signore! The queue starts outside. You mustn’t wait there.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m going to work. It’s important.’

‘I’m going to the shops. It’s important for me too. I need to sit down.’

Someone else joined in. ‘I’m going to work too. Get to the back of the line.’

I made one final, despairing effort. ‘Look. There’s room for us all here.’ I patted the space next to me. ‘Sit down here, signora.’ I’d picked the wrong day, obviously. The entire front row was now shouting at me. Italians are very good at those strange conversations where people pretend to be shouting at each other and having a proper fight for five minutes before the situation resolves itself and the problem just goes away. I began to realise it wasn’t going to be one of those occasions. When an ominously big and beardy fishmonger started remonstrating as well I decided to try and beat a dignified retreat. I folded my paper away and walked back to the fondamenta. Ironic cheers followed me along my way.

I was last on to the vaporetto, the marinaio practically having to push the last few stragglers on, like commuters on the Tokyo underground being stuffed on to trains. I shared half my personal space with the rucksack of the backpacker next to me, who ignored the marinaio’s plea to take it off and put it on the deck; something he might have been prepared to do had there been an inch of space there. Most people, hopefully, would be getting off at the San Zaccaria stop for Piazza San Marco. That was only twenty minutes away. But it was going to be a long twenty minutes.

Sometimes Venice could be a hard city to live in. Sometimes, I thought, you really had to want to live here.

The crush did indeed thin out a little, but I was still sweating uncomfortably by the time we reached the Arsenale stop, the last one before Giardini. I decided to get off anyway. It wasn’t a long walk, and it might help me to cool down a little. Many of the great and perhaps not quite so good had parked their maxi-yachts along the riva here, granting them a magnificent view over the bacino of San Marco and, coincidentally, blocking off said view for the local residents.

After ten minutes’ walk I was at the entrance to the Giardini, that great, green space that was one of Napoleon’s better legacies to Venice. I walked past the statues of Wagner and Verdi, both of whom had had their noses removed in an act of vandalism a couple of years previously. There was no sign of the two of them ever being repaired. The two titans of nineteenth-century opera would probably always stare nose-lessly out at passers-by.

Venice is short of public gardens and so it had always seemed a shame to me that so much of its biggest park remained closed off for so much of the time. Indeed, the public wouldn’t be allowed in for three days yet, as the art world’s press mixed with artists, curators, collectors and oligarchs during the preview. Crowds were forming at the entrance. There was still a pecking order, even amongst the chosen few.

I had made up a little time so I stopped for a caffè macchiato at Paradiso, and took it outside. From here I could see the whole of the bacino, the island of Giudecca, the church of the Salute and the entrance to the Grand Canal. I hadn’t been up this way since, when? The last Biennale? I’d forgotten just how majestic that view was. Oh yes, you really had to want to live in Venice. And this was why people really wanted to live here.

I walked past the ever-growing line and waved my pass to the guard. She took a brief look at it, and punched the number into her handset. Then she looked confused, looked at me again, and re-entered the number. Her device bleeped and flashed a red light in a way that didn’t seem terribly encouraging. She drew a deep breath. ‘This thing hasn’t been working all morning,’ and waved me through.

My feet crunched on the gravel as I walked. The sky was clear, the sun was shining and, away from the suffocating crush of the vaporetto, it was just – just – warm enough. It was pretty much the perfect time of year to be in Venice. And it was certainly the perfect time to be at the Biennale; before actually seeing anything, when everything was unknown and everything was potentially brilliant. I smiled to myself. Months of translation work had left me feeling more than a bit cynical about the whole jamboree but – despite oligarchs, maxi-yachts and unintelligible abstracts – there was still a bit of magic about it. Some of the pavilions – the clean, minimalist lines of Scandinavia and Denmark, the jaggy modernism of Alvar Aalto’s Finnish building – seemed to reflect national stereotypes. Others were quirkier. The Hungarian pavilion was, somehow, the most Hungarian-looking building ever designed. The unfortunate Uruguayans were exiled to what had been a small warehouse around the back of the gardens. I stopped to give a quick wave to Enrico, engaged in conversation with a group of journalists outside the Venezuelan pavilion, a 1950s work by Carlo Scarpa.

‘Nathan, Nathan, wait up!’ I recognised the voice. I turned to see my Romanian friend Gheorghe jogging up the gravel path behind me, dressed, ever so slightly incongruously, in full evening dress. He smiled. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Meeting and greeting, Gheorghe. Opening day for the Brits. And, well, everyone I suppose. How about you? Come to cheer on the Romanians?’

‘Maybe later, Nathan. First day of work.’ He smiled.

‘Work? I thought you were still carrying dogs across bridges?’

‘I am, but I don’t do so much leg work these days. That whole operation is kind of franchised out. Leaves me a bit more time for other projects.’

‘That’s brilliant. I’m glad it’s going well. So what are you doing?’

‘I’m a dancing Frenchman.’

‘You what?’

‘A dancing Frenchman. That’s their installation this year. Half a dozen of us at a time, we’re just dressed up like this, in evening dress. And when somebody enters the pavilion we do a little dance around them. There’s some words to go with it as well. It’s fun. Come along later.’

‘I will. But, erm, why you? I mean, with you not being French and all.’

‘They couldn’t get enough, Nathan. An Insufficiency of Frenchmen, they’re calling it. They wanted people who could dance a bit and do a French accent.’

‘So they called you?’

‘Bit of luck really. I was helping a young woman’s poodle over the Rialto Bridge. That’s a nice route to have, you can have a proper chat with people. Anyway, it turned out she’s working for the curator, told me to get in touch.’ He smiled. ‘It’s good pay as well. And nearly six months’ work.’

‘I’m glad. Could be a whole new career for you?’

‘You never know. It’s a bit of a niche market, mind, but the skills are transferable.’ I could never quite tell when Gheorghe was being serious.

‘They might have called me. I speak French.’

‘Are you much of a dancer, Nathan?’

‘Not for the dancing. For the translation.’

We strolled together along the gravel paths in the early morning sun, up to the three great pavilions of Germany, France and Great Britain. All imposing, and all just a little bit pompous in comparison to some of the more modern, funkier ones we’d passed. We shook hands. ‘Buon lavoro, Gheorghe.’

‘Thanks. You too.’ He looked around. ‘There’s a few photographers around. Maybe we’ll both be in the papers?’

‘That’d be nice. See you later.’ He walked off, giving a little twirl along the way as if already getting into character.

A group of young people in regulation Art World Black T-shirts were handing out catalogues and goody. . .