Lovers and Liars Trilogy by Sally Beauman
Gini produced the photograph and they examined it together. McMullen’s army days: He was wearing camouflage combat dress; his parachute regiment badge was just visible on his beret. He had turned to look at the camera, and the details of his face were slightly blurred. A man of average height, with fair hair and handsome but unremarkable features. He was wearing a signet ring; it could just be glimpsed on the small finger of his left hand. On the back of the photograph it said: Wiesbaden, West Germany—NATO exercise 1988.
Gini gave a sigh. “It doesn’t tell us very much,” she said. “Still, why should it? Photographs rarely do.”
Pascal smiled. “I hope you don’t mean that.”
“I don’t mean your kind of photographs—you know that perfectly well. But this is just a snapshot. It tells us very little, it seems to me.”
“Put it together with other information, and it tells us more.” Pascal paused. “First of all—what does he look like? He’ll be in his forties now. Good-looking, a little unmemorable, wearing a signet ring. You remember those suits and shirts in his apartment? A conventional Englishman, yes? Exactly what you’d expect from a man of his background and class. An officer and a gentleman, all set to be a general eventually, that’s what his very unconventional sister said to me.”
“Except he left the army?”
“Indeed. But there’s more. The choice of regiment, for instance. The Paras? Might you not expect such a man, ex-public school, ex-Oxford, Sword of Honour at Sandhurst, to choose a more conventional, a more elitist regiment, like the Guards?”
“Maybe. Maybe. I’m not too up on the British Army.”
“Well, take my word for it. It’s an unusual choice. Not without precedent, obviously, but unusual just the same. And when I started checking out the man—”
“Other unusual elements?”
“Sure. First, his Oxford career. You remember what Jenkins told us? Well, he was right. McMullen went to Christ Church to read modern history in 1968. He was a high flyer, Gini—and yet, what happens? He never takes his degree. He leaves after only one year.”
“You checked with the college?”
“Sure.”
“Did they give a reason? Was he ill? Was he sent down, expelled?”
“If any of those factors applied, they weren’t about to tell me.” Pascal took the photograph. He looked at it closely, then put it down. “What’s more,” he continued, “when you look into his army career, it’s the same pattern. There’s a gap of three years after Oxford. He joins the army in 1972. He seems destined for higher things, just the way his sister said, and then what happens? He reaches the rank of captain only, which is average promotion for his age and length of service. Then, in 1989, he suddenly resigns his commission. He leaves.”
Gini frowned thoughtfully. “Four years ago. That’s interesting. A period of time that comes up elsewhere in this story. Four years ago, Hawthorne’s younger son is seriously ill. As a result of that, Hawthorne then abandons his career in politics. Four years ago, if you can believe the Washington tittle-tattle, which you probably can’t, Lise Hawthorne becomes ill and as a result her marriage is under strain. Four years. Could there be a connection?”
“It’s possible. I wish I knew exactly when he and Lise first met, how they met, and where. The sister could have told me, obviously, but you know what happened there.”
“Did none of the friends know anything?”
“Nothing. They were useless. Obviously not in close touch with him. But then his sister said he was becoming a recluse. One man had last seen him in August last year. They went grouse shooting together in Yorkshire. He described McMullen as a good chap. …Hopeless. I mentioned Lise Hawthorne, and none of them reacted. They all said the same: Well, I could always try her, if I were really eager to get hold of him, but they’d never heard him mention her name.”
“What about the other friend? The one his sister mentioned?”
“Jeremy Prior-Kent? He’s out of town. He makes TV commercials. He’s due back in London on Monday or Tuesday. We can try him then, but I’m not optimistic.”
“What about people he worked with in the City? Jenkins said he was in the City after he left the army.”
“I tried them all.” Pascal shrugged. “And they were useless too. His last job was with a firm of stockbrokers, arranged through a friend of his father’s. It wasn’t a senior post, and it didn’t pan out. He resigned suddenly in January last year. He hasn’t worked since then, nor does he need to, if you can believe his sister’s account.”
“January. A year ago.” Gini glanced at him. “That’s another coincidence, Pascal. It was around then that Hawthorne was appointed ambassador. McMullen left his job just as Lise came to London. You think there’s a link?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Pascal was beginning to look disheartened. “I’m getting damn sick of suppositions. I just wish we had a few more facts.”
He turned back and scowled at the window. The noise of the plane’s engines altered pitch. A meal and drinks were served. Not long afterward, the seat-belt sign flashed on. They were beginning their descent. Gini craned her neck and peered out of the window. She had never been to Venice, and in her imagination the city was a miraculous place. She had seen glimpses of it so many times, as everyone had; glimpses in paintings, in photographs, in novels. She wanted to catch sight now of islands, the lagoon, but she could see nothing.
Pascal was staring into the clouds that enveloped the plane as they descended through thick mist. His face was preoccupied, and tense. It had puzzled her before, his lack of excitement as this key meeting came close. Now, suddenly, she understood it.
She said in a quiet voice, “You don’t believe we are going to find him, do you, Pascal? You think McMullen’s dead.”
He gave a wry look, then a shrug. “It seems to me a possibility. A twenty-day silence?”
“Death in Venice?”
“That’s a novel way of putting it.” He gave a brief smile. “But I’m afraid so. Yes.”
It was raining in Venice. It rained upon the airport; it rained upon the transfer launch; it rained upon them as they negotiated the maze of narrow waterways that led to their hotel. Inside, their rooms were adjacent. Pascal followed her into her room. He watched her cross straight to the window and throw the shutters back. She gave a low cry of delight.
“Look, Pascal, look. Oh, what an astonishing place. I’m glad it’s raining. Look at the light.”
He moved to her side. Their view of the Grand Canal outside was oblique. Water vapor made the air luminous. Across the water, through rain, a palazzo could be glimpsed. Rain gave its stone a silvery sheen. Below it, laid out across the water, was its twin, its reflection. Haze and perspective tricked the eye: The reflection of the palace was as real, as substantial and as insubstantial, as the palace itself. As they watched, a vaporetto passed. The reflections stirred and dissipated. As the water stilled and grew calm again, the phantom palaces reformed upon its surface.
The sky was without color: The light had the shifting and endless subtlety of tone in which silver merged to pearl, pearl to gray, and gray to black. As Pascal watched this luminescence, his instinct was to reach for his camera. Then he stopped, looked again, thought again. A camera was the wrong instrument for this. He laid his hand quietly across Gini’s shoulders, and she swung around to look at him, delight in her face.
“I cannot trust my own eyes,” she said. “Look. The rain deceives them and the reflections and the light….”
“I trust your eyes,” Pascal said.
Some while later he closed the window, and they left their hotel. Within twenty minutes they were lost. It would take them over an hour to locate the Palazzo Ossorio, even though it was close by, and Pascal, ever practical, had come armed with a map.
“This city is like a labyrinth,” Pascal said, coming to a halt.
“It’s a very beautiful labyrinth.”
“Even so.” Pascal frowned at the map. “It seems so clear. We walk along
here, into a square, then first left on the far side.”
“We’ve done that twice. We’re walking in circles.”
They retraced their steps. This time, believing they followed the same route, they found themselves in a different place, a narrow and dark passagieta. The canal beside them moved with the tide; the air smelled salty. A gondola and a boat rocked beside the quay. They turned into a passageway, through a low archway, and found themselves facing a solid wall. They were about to turn back, when Gini froze.
“Listen, Pascal.” She caught at his sleeve. “Footsteps. Someone is following us. I thought so once or twice before.”
Pascal placed a finger against her lips. They stood there in silence. The footsteps approached the entrance to the passagieta, then stopped, then retreated. Pascal ran back out to the quay, but there was no one in sight. He stood, frowning, looking this way and that.
“Did you see anyone?” Gini said as she rejoined him.
“No. No one. But look at this place, Gini.” He gestured around them. “So many little turns and doorways and passageways…” He shrugged. “It was probably nothing. We’ll be more careful from now on.”
They were, but the Palazzo Ossorio still proved elusive, and eventually Pascal’s patience ran out.
“There should damn well be a bridge here.” He came to a halt. “Where the hell is it?”
“We’ve taken another wrong turn, I think.”
“This is ridiculous. I never get lost. Let’s look at this map again.”
Gini peered over his shoulder at the map. She traced a web of minute intersections and crossings. “We’re here. I think.”
“Impossible. We can’t be. We’re there. We’re going in totally the wrong direction. What we have to do is get to this intersection here—you see, where four streets meet? Then we go around the corner, into the square, and we’re practically there. It isn’t that far.”
They followed his directions. When they came to the key intersection, they found six narrow streets met there, not four.
“Merde.” Pascal began to swear in French, and continued to swear, at length.
Gini said, “It seems simple to me. We just take this street, then we keep aiming to the right. It’s very close.”
“It’s very close and we’re not going to get there by guesswork. Or instinct. Gini—wait….”
Gini had darted off along the passageway she had indicated. Pascal followed her. She disappeared very suddenly from sight. Pascal began to run. He found himself in a square with a small café. Gini was waiting for him. Rain had drenched her hair, rain ran down her face. Taking his hand, she pointed, and around the corner, down a tiny and almost invisible passageway, they found a canal, a quay, and the Palazzo Ossorio at last. They stood and looked at it in silence, this elusive building. It was a palace no longer, and its splendors were ruined. Now it was semiderelict; timbers propped up its crumbling portico. It looked both uninhabited and unsafe.
“He can’t be here. Surely he can’t be here?” Gini stared up at the building. A rat scuttled from the building’s courtyard and into the canal.
“Shall we go in and find out?” Pascal said.
McMullen’s apartment was on the top floor; the rest of the building appeared abandoned. Outside McMullen’s door, which had neither knocker or bell, was an empty saucer. A thin ginger cat watched them, crouched on a window ledge. There was a flyblown note tacked to the door, instructing them in English that if the occupant should be out, to come back.
Dead leaves rustled in the corners of the stairs. From the distance, perhaps from an adjacent building, came the sound of a door slamming. A woman shouted; a child screamed. Then there was silence. The cat watched them with narrowed green eyes. Pascal approached the door and hammered hard on its panels. There was no response. Pascal paused, then hammered again. His blows echoed down the stairwell. The cat leapt to the ground and slunk past them. Tail vertical, its tip twitching, the cat descended the stairs, rounded a bend, and disappeared.
Gini said, “This is a horrible place. It smells foul. Damp. Murky. Decaying. Pascal, let’s go. He’s obviously not here.”
Pascal was examining the door, which, though old, was heavy. He inspected its one lock. He crossed to the window where the cat had been perched, opened it with difficulty, and leaned out. There was a sheer fifty-foot drop to the canal below. No ledges. No pipes.
Gini said, “Pascal, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. One break-in is one too many. Let’s come back later. We can ask at that café in the square.”
Pascal pounded one last time on the door. He tested its strength against his weight The door did not shift an inch. He stepped back with an air of resignation.
“Very well. You’re probably right. We’ll make some inquiries. And then we’ll return.”
The owner of the café, a taciturn man, eyed them and shrugged. Englishman? What Englishman? He knew of no such person—this wasn’t a tourist area. The Palazzo Ossorio? Impossible. The place was empty. There had been some mad old grandmother holed up there, but even she had not been seen in weeks. Maybe she’d died, maybe she’d moved on. Who in their right mind would want to live in a place like that?
Its owner? He had no idea. Well, yes, since they mentioned it, they could try rental agencies, but not in this neighborhood. They might find some on the other side of the Grand Canal. There were places there that rented accommodations to foreigners, sure—but in the winter most of them closed. There was one they might try, in the Calle Larga 22 Marzo, off the west side of St. Mark’s Square.
The café owner stood watching them depart. He coughed as they rounded the corner, and from the café’s rear room a tall man dressed in a dark overcoat emerged.
“Grazie mille,” he said. He handed back his half-empty cup of espresso, looked out at the sky, and made a few disparaging remarks about the weather in Italian. The café owner noted that his accent was good, his phrasing idiomatic—though he was certainly not a Venetian, not from around there. The man peeled off a few notes and tossed them down. They came to several thousand lire more than the price of an espresso. Without further comment or backward glance, the foreigner walked out into the rain.
On the far side of the canal, Pascal and Gini found four rental agencies, including the one in the Calle Larga, but all four were closed and shuttered. They inquired in numerous hotels: None had any single Englishmen registered, let alone one who fit McMullen’s description. Few cafés or restaurants were open out of season; of those that were, they tried the obvious ones first, then the less obvious ones, tucked away in back streets. No one recognized McMullen’s photograph.
“Nothing,” Pascal said. They had returned to St. Mark’s Square, and were standing outside the glitter and glimmer of the cathedral’s facade. “This is a hopeless task. There are thousands of cafés, thousands of hotels.” He stared angrily across the square. The light was failing. Water made the paving stones of the piazza shine. Lights spilled out from the cafés in the arcades on either side.
Gini glanced over her shoulder. From the cathedral porch behind came the sound of voices. A few off-season tourists made their way in and out. English voices; American voices; other languages she could neither identify nor understand. Shapes of people, shadows. She turned back to Pascal, and so did not notice that one of those shadows was close behind them by the steps.
Gini shivered and drew her coat around her. The wind was blowing up, the light fading; it was cold, and her hands felt like ice.
She felt a sudden despondency. All this way for nothing. She shook herself, then chafed her hands together. Pascal, turning, saw the expression on her face.
“Don’t despair.” He put his arms around her. “You’re cold, and you’re tired. But we mustn’t give in. We’ll go to a café, get something to eat. Drink some hot coffee. Then we’ll go back to that apartment again.”
“What if there’s still no reply?”
Pascal hesitated. He said gently, “Gini, you know the answer to that.
Somehow or other—legally or illegally—we get in.”
At five they returned to the Palazzo Ossorio. It was dark, and the surrounding streets were ill lit. The whole area seemed deserted: There were no passersby on the streets, no sounds of voices, or radios or television. Above the dark water of the canal rose a thin greenish mist.
Pascal led her across to the silent building. He took her hand, and they felt their way across the courtyard. At the foot of the stone staircase he produced a flashlight. By its narrow beam, still hand in hand, they began to mount the stone steps.
Halfway up, Gini froze. She said, “What’s that?”
They stood, listening. Pascal switched off the flashlight. The darkness was thick; she could see nothing, not even the outlines of the steps. She felt her skin chill, and the hair prickle at the back of her neck.
From somewhere, perhaps below, perhaps above them, came the sound of a low crooning. The sound rose in pitch, then diminished to a whisper, then stopped. She felt Pascal’s body tense.
After a pause the noise began again, a low, liquid, murmuring sound, like an incantation. Gini felt something brush her legs. She stifled a cry, and Pascal drew her close. He pressed his hand across her lips, and said in a low voice, “Someone lives here. This building isn’t deserted at all.”
He listened, the crooning began, again stopped. Somewhere below them there was a shuffling sound. A door opened and closed. Against one of the stairway walls, momentarily, they saw a band of light. It disappeared as the door closed and the murmuring recommenced. “Cats,” Pascal said suddenly in a low voice. “It’s all right, Gini. Someone lives here and lives here alone. Listen, it’s a woman—an old woman—and she’s talking to her cats….”
Gini listened: She knew at once he was right. She was trembling, and ashamed of trembling. Pascal’s grip on her hand tightened. He switched on the flashlight and moved toward the steps.
McMullen’s apartment was two flights farther up. From the landing outside his door the crooning was inaudible. Gini leaned against the wall. Outside, the wind buffeted the building; the window creaked.
Gini gave a sigh. “It doesn’t tell us very much,” she said. “Still, why should it? Photographs rarely do.”
Pascal smiled. “I hope you don’t mean that.”
“I don’t mean your kind of photographs—you know that perfectly well. But this is just a snapshot. It tells us very little, it seems to me.”
“Put it together with other information, and it tells us more.” Pascal paused. “First of all—what does he look like? He’ll be in his forties now. Good-looking, a little unmemorable, wearing a signet ring. You remember those suits and shirts in his apartment? A conventional Englishman, yes? Exactly what you’d expect from a man of his background and class. An officer and a gentleman, all set to be a general eventually, that’s what his very unconventional sister said to me.”
“Except he left the army?”
“Indeed. But there’s more. The choice of regiment, for instance. The Paras? Might you not expect such a man, ex-public school, ex-Oxford, Sword of Honour at Sandhurst, to choose a more conventional, a more elitist regiment, like the Guards?”
“Maybe. Maybe. I’m not too up on the British Army.”
“Well, take my word for it. It’s an unusual choice. Not without precedent, obviously, but unusual just the same. And when I started checking out the man—”
“Other unusual elements?”
“Sure. First, his Oxford career. You remember what Jenkins told us? Well, he was right. McMullen went to Christ Church to read modern history in 1968. He was a high flyer, Gini—and yet, what happens? He never takes his degree. He leaves after only one year.”
“You checked with the college?”
“Sure.”
“Did they give a reason? Was he ill? Was he sent down, expelled?”
“If any of those factors applied, they weren’t about to tell me.” Pascal took the photograph. He looked at it closely, then put it down. “What’s more,” he continued, “when you look into his army career, it’s the same pattern. There’s a gap of three years after Oxford. He joins the army in 1972. He seems destined for higher things, just the way his sister said, and then what happens? He reaches the rank of captain only, which is average promotion for his age and length of service. Then, in 1989, he suddenly resigns his commission. He leaves.”
Gini frowned thoughtfully. “Four years ago. That’s interesting. A period of time that comes up elsewhere in this story. Four years ago, Hawthorne’s younger son is seriously ill. As a result of that, Hawthorne then abandons his career in politics. Four years ago, if you can believe the Washington tittle-tattle, which you probably can’t, Lise Hawthorne becomes ill and as a result her marriage is under strain. Four years. Could there be a connection?”
“It’s possible. I wish I knew exactly when he and Lise first met, how they met, and where. The sister could have told me, obviously, but you know what happened there.”
“Did none of the friends know anything?”
“Nothing. They were useless. Obviously not in close touch with him. But then his sister said he was becoming a recluse. One man had last seen him in August last year. They went grouse shooting together in Yorkshire. He described McMullen as a good chap. …Hopeless. I mentioned Lise Hawthorne, and none of them reacted. They all said the same: Well, I could always try her, if I were really eager to get hold of him, but they’d never heard him mention her name.”
“What about the other friend? The one his sister mentioned?”
“Jeremy Prior-Kent? He’s out of town. He makes TV commercials. He’s due back in London on Monday or Tuesday. We can try him then, but I’m not optimistic.”
“What about people he worked with in the City? Jenkins said he was in the City after he left the army.”
“I tried them all.” Pascal shrugged. “And they were useless too. His last job was with a firm of stockbrokers, arranged through a friend of his father’s. It wasn’t a senior post, and it didn’t pan out. He resigned suddenly in January last year. He hasn’t worked since then, nor does he need to, if you can believe his sister’s account.”
“January. A year ago.” Gini glanced at him. “That’s another coincidence, Pascal. It was around then that Hawthorne was appointed ambassador. McMullen left his job just as Lise came to London. You think there’s a link?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Pascal was beginning to look disheartened. “I’m getting damn sick of suppositions. I just wish we had a few more facts.”
He turned back and scowled at the window. The noise of the plane’s engines altered pitch. A meal and drinks were served. Not long afterward, the seat-belt sign flashed on. They were beginning their descent. Gini craned her neck and peered out of the window. She had never been to Venice, and in her imagination the city was a miraculous place. She had seen glimpses of it so many times, as everyone had; glimpses in paintings, in photographs, in novels. She wanted to catch sight now of islands, the lagoon, but she could see nothing.
Pascal was staring into the clouds that enveloped the plane as they descended through thick mist. His face was preoccupied, and tense. It had puzzled her before, his lack of excitement as this key meeting came close. Now, suddenly, she understood it.
She said in a quiet voice, “You don’t believe we are going to find him, do you, Pascal? You think McMullen’s dead.”
He gave a wry look, then a shrug. “It seems to me a possibility. A twenty-day silence?”
“Death in Venice?”
“That’s a novel way of putting it.” He gave a brief smile. “But I’m afraid so. Yes.”
It was raining in Venice. It rained upon the airport; it rained upon the transfer launch; it rained upon them as they negotiated the maze of narrow waterways that led to their hotel. Inside, their rooms were adjacent. Pascal followed her into her room. He watched her cross straight to the window and throw the shutters back. She gave a low cry of delight.
“Look, Pascal, look. Oh, what an astonishing place. I’m glad it’s raining. Look at the light.”
He moved to her side. Their view of the Grand Canal outside was oblique. Water vapor made the air luminous. Across the water, through rain, a palazzo could be glimpsed. Rain gave its stone a silvery sheen. Below it, laid out across the water, was its twin, its reflection. Haze and perspective tricked the eye: The reflection of the palace was as real, as substantial and as insubstantial, as the palace itself. As they watched, a vaporetto passed. The reflections stirred and dissipated. As the water stilled and grew calm again, the phantom palaces reformed upon its surface.
The sky was without color: The light had the shifting and endless subtlety of tone in which silver merged to pearl, pearl to gray, and gray to black. As Pascal watched this luminescence, his instinct was to reach for his camera. Then he stopped, looked again, thought again. A camera was the wrong instrument for this. He laid his hand quietly across Gini’s shoulders, and she swung around to look at him, delight in her face.
“I cannot trust my own eyes,” she said. “Look. The rain deceives them and the reflections and the light….”
“I trust your eyes,” Pascal said.
Some while later he closed the window, and they left their hotel. Within twenty minutes they were lost. It would take them over an hour to locate the Palazzo Ossorio, even though it was close by, and Pascal, ever practical, had come armed with a map.
“This city is like a labyrinth,” Pascal said, coming to a halt.
“It’s a very beautiful labyrinth.”
“Even so.” Pascal frowned at the map. “It seems so clear. We walk along
“We’ve done that twice. We’re walking in circles.”
They retraced their steps. This time, believing they followed the same route, they found themselves in a different place, a narrow and dark passagieta. The canal beside them moved with the tide; the air smelled salty. A gondola and a boat rocked beside the quay. They turned into a passageway, through a low archway, and found themselves facing a solid wall. They were about to turn back, when Gini froze.
“Listen, Pascal.” She caught at his sleeve. “Footsteps. Someone is following us. I thought so once or twice before.”
Pascal placed a finger against her lips. They stood there in silence. The footsteps approached the entrance to the passagieta, then stopped, then retreated. Pascal ran back out to the quay, but there was no one in sight. He stood, frowning, looking this way and that.
“Did you see anyone?” Gini said as she rejoined him.
“No. No one. But look at this place, Gini.” He gestured around them. “So many little turns and doorways and passageways…” He shrugged. “It was probably nothing. We’ll be more careful from now on.”
They were, but the Palazzo Ossorio still proved elusive, and eventually Pascal’s patience ran out.
“There should damn well be a bridge here.” He came to a halt. “Where the hell is it?”
“We’ve taken another wrong turn, I think.”
“This is ridiculous. I never get lost. Let’s look at this map again.”
Gini peered over his shoulder at the map. She traced a web of minute intersections and crossings. “We’re here. I think.”
“Impossible. We can’t be. We’re there. We’re going in totally the wrong direction. What we have to do is get to this intersection here—you see, where four streets meet? Then we go around the corner, into the square, and we’re practically there. It isn’t that far.”
They followed his directions. When they came to the key intersection, they found six narrow streets met there, not four.
“Merde.” Pascal began to swear in French, and continued to swear, at length.
Gini said, “It seems simple to me. We just take this street, then we keep aiming to the right. It’s very close.”
“It’s very close and we’re not going to get there by guesswork. Or instinct. Gini—wait….”
Gini had darted off along the passageway she had indicated. Pascal followed her. She disappeared very suddenly from sight. Pascal began to run. He found himself in a square with a small café. Gini was waiting for him. Rain had drenched her hair, rain ran down her face. Taking his hand, she pointed, and around the corner, down a tiny and almost invisible passageway, they found a canal, a quay, and the Palazzo Ossorio at last. They stood and looked at it in silence, this elusive building. It was a palace no longer, and its splendors were ruined. Now it was semiderelict; timbers propped up its crumbling portico. It looked both uninhabited and unsafe.
“He can’t be here. Surely he can’t be here?” Gini stared up at the building. A rat scuttled from the building’s courtyard and into the canal.
“Shall we go in and find out?” Pascal said.
McMullen’s apartment was on the top floor; the rest of the building appeared abandoned. Outside McMullen’s door, which had neither knocker or bell, was an empty saucer. A thin ginger cat watched them, crouched on a window ledge. There was a flyblown note tacked to the door, instructing them in English that if the occupant should be out, to come back.
Dead leaves rustled in the corners of the stairs. From the distance, perhaps from an adjacent building, came the sound of a door slamming. A woman shouted; a child screamed. Then there was silence. The cat watched them with narrowed green eyes. Pascal approached the door and hammered hard on its panels. There was no response. Pascal paused, then hammered again. His blows echoed down the stairwell. The cat leapt to the ground and slunk past them. Tail vertical, its tip twitching, the cat descended the stairs, rounded a bend, and disappeared.
Gini said, “This is a horrible place. It smells foul. Damp. Murky. Decaying. Pascal, let’s go. He’s obviously not here.”
Pascal was examining the door, which, though old, was heavy. He inspected its one lock. He crossed to the window where the cat had been perched, opened it with difficulty, and leaned out. There was a sheer fifty-foot drop to the canal below. No ledges. No pipes.
Gini said, “Pascal, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. One break-in is one too many. Let’s come back later. We can ask at that café in the square.”
Pascal pounded one last time on the door. He tested its strength against his weight The door did not shift an inch. He stepped back with an air of resignation.
“Very well. You’re probably right. We’ll make some inquiries. And then we’ll return.”
The owner of the café, a taciturn man, eyed them and shrugged. Englishman? What Englishman? He knew of no such person—this wasn’t a tourist area. The Palazzo Ossorio? Impossible. The place was empty. There had been some mad old grandmother holed up there, but even she had not been seen in weeks. Maybe she’d died, maybe she’d moved on. Who in their right mind would want to live in a place like that?
Its owner? He had no idea. Well, yes, since they mentioned it, they could try rental agencies, but not in this neighborhood. They might find some on the other side of the Grand Canal. There were places there that rented accommodations to foreigners, sure—but in the winter most of them closed. There was one they might try, in the Calle Larga 22 Marzo, off the west side of St. Mark’s Square.
The café owner stood watching them depart. He coughed as they rounded the corner, and from the café’s rear room a tall man dressed in a dark overcoat emerged.
“Grazie mille,” he said. He handed back his half-empty cup of espresso, looked out at the sky, and made a few disparaging remarks about the weather in Italian. The café owner noted that his accent was good, his phrasing idiomatic—though he was certainly not a Venetian, not from around there. The man peeled off a few notes and tossed them down. They came to several thousand lire more than the price of an espresso. Without further comment or backward glance, the foreigner walked out into the rain.
On the far side of the canal, Pascal and Gini found four rental agencies, including the one in the Calle Larga, but all four were closed and shuttered. They inquired in numerous hotels: None had any single Englishmen registered, let alone one who fit McMullen’s description. Few cafés or restaurants were open out of season; of those that were, they tried the obvious ones first, then the less obvious ones, tucked away in back streets. No one recognized McMullen’s photograph.
“Nothing,” Pascal said. They had returned to St. Mark’s Square, and were standing outside the glitter and glimmer of the cathedral’s facade. “This is a hopeless task. There are thousands of cafés, thousands of hotels.” He stared angrily across the square. The light was failing. Water made the paving stones of the piazza shine. Lights spilled out from the cafés in the arcades on either side.
Gini glanced over her shoulder. From the cathedral porch behind came the sound of voices. A few off-season tourists made their way in and out. English voices; American voices; other languages she could neither identify nor understand. Shapes of people, shadows. She turned back to Pascal, and so did not notice that one of those shadows was close behind them by the steps.
Gini shivered and drew her coat around her. The wind was blowing up, the light fading; it was cold, and her hands felt like ice.
She felt a sudden despondency. All this way for nothing. She shook herself, then chafed her hands together. Pascal, turning, saw the expression on her face.
“Don’t despair.” He put his arms around her. “You’re cold, and you’re tired. But we mustn’t give in. We’ll go to a café, get something to eat. Drink some hot coffee. Then we’ll go back to that apartment again.”
“What if there’s still no reply?”
Pascal hesitated. He said gently, “Gini, you know the answer to that.
At five they returned to the Palazzo Ossorio. It was dark, and the surrounding streets were ill lit. The whole area seemed deserted: There were no passersby on the streets, no sounds of voices, or radios or television. Above the dark water of the canal rose a thin greenish mist.
Pascal led her across to the silent building. He took her hand, and they felt their way across the courtyard. At the foot of the stone staircase he produced a flashlight. By its narrow beam, still hand in hand, they began to mount the stone steps.
Halfway up, Gini froze. She said, “What’s that?”
They stood, listening. Pascal switched off the flashlight. The darkness was thick; she could see nothing, not even the outlines of the steps. She felt her skin chill, and the hair prickle at the back of her neck.
From somewhere, perhaps below, perhaps above them, came the sound of a low crooning. The sound rose in pitch, then diminished to a whisper, then stopped. She felt Pascal’s body tense.
After a pause the noise began again, a low, liquid, murmuring sound, like an incantation. Gini felt something brush her legs. She stifled a cry, and Pascal drew her close. He pressed his hand across her lips, and said in a low voice, “Someone lives here. This building isn’t deserted at all.”
He listened, the crooning began, again stopped. Somewhere below them there was a shuffling sound. A door opened and closed. Against one of the stairway walls, momentarily, they saw a band of light. It disappeared as the door closed and the murmuring recommenced. “Cats,” Pascal said suddenly in a low voice. “It’s all right, Gini. Someone lives here and lives here alone. Listen, it’s a woman—an old woman—and she’s talking to her cats….”
Gini listened: She knew at once he was right. She was trembling, and ashamed of trembling. Pascal’s grip on her hand tightened. He switched on the flashlight and moved toward the steps.
McMullen’s apartment was two flights farther up. From the landing outside his door the crooning was inaudible. Gini leaned against the wall. Outside, the wind buffeted the building; the window creaked.