The Medici Murders, page 29
So many times after that first visit we’d stood at the edge of this promontory, arm in arm like teenagers, dreaming about the life we’d lead when finally we made the move. Did Eleanor know it would never happen? Looking back, I believe so and she was too afraid to say. Not for herself, but for me. I was blind to how ill she was, how inwardly furious about the state of the world. How tortured by the guilt she felt for sending a hapless victim Marmaduke Godolphin’s way. The Wolff Bequest was her parting gift, a weapon aimed at the epicentre of her loathing, much like the bow in the hands of Carpaccio’s warrior, about to take the life of the fabled Ursula. Though it fell to me to loose the arrow, too late to refuse, too naïve to understand the consequences it might unleash.
Two promises. One kept, with consequences even Eleanor could not have foreseen.
The second was simpler. The small grey metal urn felt clammy as I held it in the pocket of my threadbare duffel coat. Her funeral was modest. In an addendum to her will, she’d urged me not to waste money on the dead, but save it for the future, here on my own. A crematorium ceremony, short, secular, a blur if I’m honest, right to the moment her ashes were handed over, that second promise ringing in my ears.
Scatter me over the Bacino San Marco. Then forget me, dear Arnold. Find the life you should have had.
I scanned the mouth of the Giudecca Canal. A line of bricole, the wooden posts used for navigation, rose out of the water like the stumps of a long-dead subterranean forest. The winter sun was low and bright, painting a line of glittering silver across waves dappled by the wake of a ferry headed for the terminal at San Niccolò. On most of the trunks sat cormorants the colour of coal, heads high on narrow necks, beaks long and sleek and shiny. I watched, spellbound, as the nearest turned towards the mottled streak of shimmering light and opened its wings to receive the warmth, like a follower lovingly worshipping the sun. As if hearing some unspoken squawk, the others followed suit. The morning had gathered an avian congregation at prayer to the gorgeous sky.
The little urn turned in my cold fingers as I watched those glorious birds splaying their feathers in the gentle winter rays. I couldn’t scatter the dry grey ashes of an Englishwoman on those precious waters. This time, Eleanor, I would refuse.
‘Signore,’ said a voice so close I almost jumped. When I turned, it took a moment to recognise him.
‘From the traghetto last night,’ the man said. He wore a battered gondolier’s straw hat, a heavy black jacket and, in bright daylight, the grinning, brutish face of a rugby prop. ‘You’re the friend of the capitano.’
‘True. I—’
He gestured at the traghetto point. ‘You want a ride to San Marco? For free. Valentina is my—’
‘Cousin, by any chance?’
He grinned. ‘No. My buddy’s cousin. They’re a big family. It’s a quiet day. I’m bored. You look bored too. I can show you the trick of standing upright.’ A big wink. ‘You won’t seem such a tourist then.’
I’ll always stick out here. No point in pretending. Or wanting anything else. Regrets were pointless. Just like wishing there’d been some way of telling Eleanor that the only life I ever wanted was the one we’d had together. It wasn’t her fault, anyone’s really, that so much fell apart in anger and disarray towards the end. That was the path we’d chosen. Or the one that found us. There was no telling which.
Across the Grand Canal, by Harry’s Bar, where Valentina had led us, a Number 1 had steered out of the Vallaresso jetty and was mid channel, headed the short distance to the Salute stop. I watched it manoeuvre in the swirling waters as the two of us had done so many times before.
‘Signore …’
‘Thanks,’ I said, moving already. ‘Not now.’
The boat was nearly at the jetty before I realised. I found myself running, breathless, along the pavement, racing along the pier just as the marinaio was sliding shut the metal barcarizzo gate ready to leave. I smiled at her. She looked back, shrugged, then smiled in return and rattled it to usher me through with a wave.
A quick grazie, then I headed straight for the seats in the open stern. Eleanor and I always raced for them, though there was rarely much chance most of the year. In chilly winter, though, the locals believed it madness to sit outside, so the semicircle of hard green plastic seats beyond the doors was quite empty. I took one, back to the glass, facing the churning wake as we pulled out into the canal, the sky a dazzling eggshell blue, the view clear all the way to the ragged green outline of the trees in Giardini.
A sudden breeze caught the burst of the churning propeller, kicking up a splash of spray in my face. A couple of gulls hovered in the air behind the boat.
There was a tiny gap between the seat and the old painted iron of the floor.
There I tucked my little urn.
There Eleanor would stay until the day some zealous cleaner found her. Until then, she’d travel the length of Venice, from Piazzale Roma to the Lido. Whenever I saw one of those ubiquitous vaporetti, I’d remember her, picture the two of us sitting together on the seats at the back, gazing out in wonder at a different world that would one day be our final home.
Promise kept, I got off at San Tomà and stopped at Adagio for a second, warming cappuccino.
The stiletto was gone, the wound remained, but that gentle ache was welcome and deserved. I’d keep it happily all my days.
Hardly had I grabbed my cup than I heard him.
‘Arnold! Arnold!’ The flamboyant cape, the long scarf, the broad-brimmed floppy hat. It was Luca, dashing across the paving stones, arms flapping, wide-eyed and brimful of enthusiasm as ever. ‘I’ve been trying to call you.’
How I envied my Venetian friend and his ability to live in the moment. From the excited look on his face, it was obvious that Marmaduke Godolphin and the Wolff Bequest were behind him.
‘Coffee?’ I suggested. ‘My phone was taking a break.’
‘Here …’ He came and pressed a wad of notes into my hand. ‘Fifteen hundred each. Five days’ work, as agreed.’
‘But …’
‘No buts. Signora Godolphin sent me the money last night and wouldn’t take no for an answer, not that I forced the issue. A generous lady. It was there when I checked my account this morning.’ He hesitated. ‘You wonder what she was doing with him all those years. It’s as well I won’t contemplate matrimony. It seems I’ll never understand it.’
The woman behind the counter waved a dismissive hand in his direction. ‘As if any woman would have you, Luca!’
He tapped the side of his nose. ‘That, I assure you, Fiorella, is never a problem.’
A brief and cheery argument ensued, one of those happy spats they loved. I listened for a while, bemused, then finished my coffee and got ready to leave them to it.
Luca put out a hand to stop me. ‘What will you spend your money on? Something special, I trust. Don’t save it. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? These days especially.’
I ran my fingers over my ancient duffel coat, bought all those years ago in a Debenhams that no longer existed.
‘Perhaps I need some new clothes …’
‘Perhaps?’ cried Fiorella, creased with laughter. ‘Perhaps?’
Luca stepped back from the counter, sweeping his cape around him like a dancer. ‘A tabarro for Dottore Clover! A broad-brimmed hat. A scarf. I know just the place. Just the tailor. Just the cloth. We will make a Venetian of him yet.’
‘Thanks, but—’
As ever, there was no chance to interrupt Luca Volpetti in full flow. No point in trying.
‘So, my English friend …’ he glanced round the empty bar in a conspiratorial fashion, then leaned in and placed an arm around my shoulder, ‘to what strange mystery shall we turn our talents next?’
Author’s Note
I am once again indebted to Gregory Dowling for his local guidance and insight into the lesser-known corners of Venice. To Dr Jonathan Davies of Warwick University’s history department I owe a spritz or two for guiding me to various sources and places concerning the assassination of Lorenzino de’ Medici and its aftermath.
Most of the historical links in this tale – from Benvenuto Cellini’s connections with its principal players to Michelangelo’s design of the Aldobrandini dagger – are established fact. The red herring of a connection between Michelangelo and the two Medici murders is, of course, a shameless invention on my part. For the real story behind the killings, the reader should turn to The Duke’s Assassin, Exile and Death of Lorenzino de’ Medici by Stefano Dall’Aglio, translated by Donald Weinstein, Yale University Press. This is both detailed academic work and a vivid forensic investigation of the facts behind both the death of Alessandro in 1537 in Florence and the payback assassination of Lorenzino eleven years later in Venice. The author uncovers new documents that show Alessandro’s avenger was not his cousin, Cosimo, as was supposed for many years, but his father-in-law, the emperor Charles V.
Lorenzino’s justification for Alessandro’s killing is available in English as Apology for a Murder, Hesperus Classics, translated by Andrew Brown, with an enlightening foreword by Tim Parks. The book also includes a translation of the first-hand account of Lorenzino’s murder by Francesco Bibboni, in which he details how he discovered Lorenzino’s affair with Elena Barozzi as he hunted down his victim, and the desperate measures he and his accomplice took to escape the vengeance of Venice after the deed was done. Bibboni and his fellow boastful butcher Cellini are among the few people in the real-life part of this drama to have lived to a great age and died peacefully in bed.
Many of the places in this tale are easily visited today. I will leave it to the reader to discover which are real and which pure fiction. Il Pagliaccio is an invention, though the dishes eaten by Arnold and Valentina there I have pillaged from the Bistrot de Venise in San Marco, and the Osteria Al Museo of Burano. George Bourne’s cocktails at Il Mercante represent the offerings available around the time of writing and have doubtless been superseded by different exotic concoctions already.
David Hewson
Kent and Venice, 2021
David Hewson, The Medici Murders
