DEATH IN VERONA

ROY HARLEY LEWIS

In the sixth of his critically acclaimed crime novel series featuring Matthew Coll the bookseller detective, Roy Harley Lewis turns his attention to one of the truly great love stories, Romeo and Juliet. Although captivated by Shakespeare’s dialogue, Matt finds the plot leaves too many questions unanswered—such as why Juliet’s parents behaved so uncharacteristically in the events leading to her death. Determined to go back to the legend’s source and satisfy his curiosity, Matt takes a trip to Verona.

However, instead of an academic holiday, Coll finds the modem city every bit as dangerous as it must have been in the days of the Montague-Capulet feud, and he becomes embroiled in a perilous mystery with its roots hidden deep in the mists of history. The key to his quest is the Capulet family, and an undiscovered, passionate love story concealed after the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Proof exists in the form of a handwritten journal of the period—but there are some who believe they have prior claim…

By the same author

A Cracking of Spines

The Manuscript Murders

A Pension for Death

Where Agents Fear to Tread

Miracles Take a Little Longer

To Timothy Holme

Copyright © 1989 by Roy Harley Lewis. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lewis, Roy Harley.

Death in Verona I Roy Harley Lewis, p. cm.

“A Thomas Dunne book.”

ISBN 0-312-02902-0

I.    Title.

PR6062.E9543D43   1989

88-35152 CIP

823’.914—dcl9

First published in Great Britain by Robert Hale Limited.

First U.S. Edition

10 987654321

Preface

The contempt on the young Italian’s face was too exaggerated to be convincing, leaving the person he had tried to provoke bemused more than frightened. But as the remaining animation flickered and died - to be replaced by an expression cold as a death mask—the effect was disturbing. When he spoke again to offer his adversary the choice of weapons, the flat, dispassionate voice left no doubt as to his intentions.

Even so, the stranger found it hard to conceive the challenge could be genuine; that he was not the victim of a practical joke. ‘Swords or pistols?’ he speculated, tongue in cheek.

‘Is my English so bad? I said the choice is yours!’ Despite the absence of expression, there could no longer be any doubt the young man was deadly serious. His apparent indifference, as though they were merely tossing for ends in a game of tennis, was even more unsettling.

‘You have to be joking,’ he replied, clutching at straws.

The tone, more than the question, touched a nerve. When the Italian responded there was a note of exasperation. ‘I thought you knew something of the history of Verona. We never joke about honour.’

‘Pull the other one!’

‘Che diavolo …? I do not understand.’

‘What is there to understand? Duelling went out a couple of centuries ago—certainly in my country. All I know about swords and pistols is what I can remember from The Three Musketeers.’

Struggling to retain his composure, the young man scowled. ‘Are you a coward, or merely a fool?’

‘Sticks and stones…’

‘Cosa…?’

‘Sticks and stones,’ he repeated, ‘can break my bones, but names…it’s the way children trade insults; it seemed appropriate. Let me pass, there’s a good fellow. Coward or fool, I don’t fight with kids - at least, not with deadly weapons. I do know something about the honour you mean. Wasn’t it restricted to gentlemen? If that is so, we’re talking at cross purposes because unlike you, I have no such pretensions.’

The Italian flushed; whether from anger or humiliation it was not clear. For a split second he was tempted to strike the foreigner, but that went against the grain. He could not force himself on an opponent who did not accept or even understand the rules. Duelling was nothing if not the prerogative of honourable men.

The stress was beginning to get at him, what with the hot sun, the shimmering haze, and the score that needed to be settled. There had been a time, on this very spot…

Hot blood and honour were synonymous in renaissance Italy. Tybalt’s awesome reputation for brawling was respected and even admired by friends, excused as mere impetuosity by complacent elders to whom law and order were normally sacrosanct. At the same time it made him a target for other hot-blooded young men with reputations to build. In six years he had killed four and wounded another seven and in all that time, in moments of congratulation or condemnation—duelling was seldom officially outlawed—nobody had ever questioned his motives, still less attempted to analyse the pattern of his behaviour. Yet what to others was a split-second eruption was to him invariably an ordeal, leaving him physically as well as emotionally drained; hardly surprising since the climax to many fights was bloodstained exhaustion, if not death.

Four dead and seven wounded, several seriously, meant that killing was in itself no longer a traumatic experience, and indeed all he could recall from the early fights were isolated incidents, usually of a clinical nature, a particularly elegant feint or riposte. More recently he had been haunted by faces. One day, perhaps, the overbearingly pompous captain of the Guard; another, the effeminate, perfumed merchant from Milan who had proved to be the best swordsman of all.

The soldier was a powerful, middle-aged family man who should have known better than to fight him in the new style with dagger as well as rapier - for it was the dagger which had caught him off guard. He would never forget the look of pained surprise on the flushed face when the short blade jammed between the ribs and would not come out cleanly…they had been locked together, staring into each other’s eyes—those of the soldier reflecting each involuntary grunt of pain that coincided with the movement of the knife. Eventually he had lost his nerve, and left the blade in place. The merchant’s downfall had been very different; his technique excellent and his courage unquestioned. But an ill-disguised concern for his appearance, particularly to protect his face, meant that when, shrewdly, the attack was switched to that target, he had panicked. Then there was the time…

Because he had no truly intimate friend among the legion of admirers, there was never anyone he could ask why ‘satisfaction’, or whatever it was they called it, seldom lasted more than a few moments. He was not obsessed with pride, yet no matter how hard he tried, it seemed impossible to back away from provocation. To one fact he was resigned. The festering growth, the solid core of anger gnawing away at his mind was not something that could be alleviated by the doctors’ leeches. It was not a question of thinning the blood; it was already too much a part of him, something he could never completely forget even in ostensibly happy moments; it reminded him of an oyster and the tiny grain of sand or grit which one day produces a pearl. But the oyster’s pain and discomfort carried with it some promise of reward to someone; his own, smouldering close to the surface of consciousness, only unpleasantness, or even death.

When prodded, this wrath would fly to the surface, unstable as mercury, like a soaring temperature before the fever had passed. The demands for release became so persistent that not until the reins of self-control had been relinquished would he experience a short-lived sensation of relief.

His opponent on this occasion was a hothead from Mantua, come to challenge the myth of invincibility. Physically a man, yet almost a caricature of the brashness of youth, a figure so upright and earnest, so true to pattern, that in a moment of near compassion he intended to ignore the challenge. But the boy had made the journey for a purpose and would not be denied. One determined insult too many caused the dam in his head to burst again, and the weapons were in his hand even before the seconds had dispensed with the formalities. Once a fight was inevitable, the pressure died away as though the hot blood inside spilled down like a waterfall to his limbs, infusing muscles with new life. The limbs would throb with an identity of their own, capable it seemed of acting independently of the brain.

Tybalt was cool enough now to determine that the boy should not die. The resolution was severely strained, because from the first clash of steel he was fighting for his life. Gripping his rapier in the left hand, unorthodox in itself, the youngster’s abundant energy coupled with a deceptive natural grace presented an awkward target and an unpredictable style difficult to contain while fighting with constraint. In the first few minutes, for example, an athletic lunge narrowly evaded by a reflex movement from the hips left the challenger’s entire stomach area invitingly open to a counter-thrust from the dagger in his own left hand. After many hundred hours of practice, and more than a score of serious fights it was an instinctive reaction; one does not calculatingly prolong a duel against someone capable of killing you. Yet he managed to resist the temptation, contenting himself with a block to brush his opponent’s sword arm aside, and stepped inside to knock him off balance with the impact of a muscular shoulder and upper arm. The unorthodoxy was effective, the boy disconcerted because in the modern style of fencing, wrestling tricks and body contact had largely been abandoned. His attack became a little less reckless.

The contest had lasted twenty minutes with the cobblestones becoming slippery underfoot, before there was an opportunity to incapacitate without inflicting serious injury, a split-second relaxation in the boy’s concentration enabling him to slip the point of the rapier through the swell of the right deltoid muscle. Blood spread like the incoming tide over the shoulder and down the sleeve of the sky-blue shirt, colouring it a dark mauve. The boy suffered the wound stoically, face flushed with satisfaction at having extended the champion, sustaining nothing worse than a clean flesh wound.

Still breathing heavily from his exertions, but relaxed at last, Tybalt looked down at the boy as they covered the wound with a makeshift bandage, grateful that his conscience was not burdened with another death. Not unmindful of the congratulatory slaps and hugs of friends and servants, he was conscious still of the piece of grit, or whatever it was, embedded in the outer fringes of his brain…in the background, but a constant hint of trouble to come.

The date was 2 January 1525, and the calculated survival of just one man from another city might have presented a glimmer of false hope that the New Year would herald a general change in attitudes. In the previous twelve months, seventeen other men of Verona had died violently, almost as many as the number of able-bodied males who had expired from natural causes or disease.

Yet while the elders of Verona complained pompously about the irresponsibility of youth - and in private quietly chuckled over the very behaviour they could not openly condone - and parents mourned their departed sons, many still in their teens, nothing had changed or was likely to change. Young men were not put off by the thought of death; after all, they all knew in their hearts…it could not happen to them.

One

Why is it that so many people having flocked to the great cities moan about the stress of living in a giant pressure-cooker? Asked why, given the choice, they make little attempt to get off the treadmill, they point to the city’s ‘culture’ compared with the wilderness outside. The fact that their unique theatres, museums, and art galleries depend on the influx of tourists is conveniently forgotten; the people who live there have other things on their minds - cloaked in a permutation of excuses to do with the shortage of time in today’s manic society.

I was luckier than most; my incentive to break away being a dream eighteenth-century six-bedroom house and bookshop at Ardley, in Dorset, a hundred or so miles from London. Like other ‘exiles’ whose priorities had changed, I now planned my periodic visits to the capital with a heightened awareness of what was currently on offer, although that automatically included a few days with Laura Cottingham. On this occasion she booked tickets for a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Romeo and Juliet, at the Barbican Theatre, the company’s London venue.

Normally content to rely on Laura’s judgement, it would have been churlish to reveal my disappointment at the choice; but Romeo and Juliet was not one of my favourite plays. The truth was that I found it hard to relate to the histrionic posturings of a couple of precocious kids; in case you have forgotten, Juliet was fourteen. I suppose a more indulgent person might concede that as maturity frequently precedes puberty among the girls of today, melodrama may well have been overtaken by events, but certainly not in sixteenth-century Italy.

However, I like the Barbican. In common with most purpose-built arts complexes it has critics complaining that the architecture is nondescript, the building too big, too small, too this and too that. Yet right from the start there was an imperceptible hum of energy about the place, even in the mornings when nothing much is happening. And. although we had not discussed it in advance, Laura knew of my admiration for John Swinton, the underrated star of TV soap opera more than classical theatre, who was playing Lord Capulet, and Dame Evelyn Kenton, who had received critical acclaim as Nurse.

Despite these consolations, my apprehension proved to be justified. The quality of the production matched what we had come to expect of the RSC, as did the technically faultless acting of the two young principals, but I remained a spectator, uninvolved, until the very end when Lord Capulet’s desolation at Juliet’s suicide was enough to grab hold of my emotions—indeed, to move me to tears. Yet for huge chunks of the play, feeling like a neutral observer, whenever I glanced at Laura she appeared mesmerised. At the final curtain I was left wondering if my judgement had been impeded by those jaundiced ideas on teenage infatuation.

Later, at Laura’s flat, I asked if she could explain why I had been so unreceptive to what was to most people a memorable experience. ‘We’re usually on the same wavelength, I pointed out. ‘Yet this time there is such a gulf we might have been watching different plays.’

She yawned. ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you.’

‘Perhaps it was the performers,’ I persisted. ‘After all, the plot revolves round Juliet, but she was overshadowed by the actress who played her mother. There was a beautiful woman!’

‘That’s not a valid complaint,’ Laura protested. ‘It just happened that Margaret Summers is an extremely attractive woman. I’ve seen half a dozen actresses in the role, but none of them would have prompted you to compare mother and daughter. The problem with casting Juliet is that she has to be played by a professional actress, not a schoolgirl, and that means women in their twenties or even thirties who look much younger. Directors offset that by making Lady Capulet that much older.’

‘But isn’t that the point?’ I insisted. ‘Juliet was a child. Pretty, perhaps, why not? But no fourteen-year-old girl could compare with a beautiful woman. Take Margaret Summers. I’d say she was in her middle or late thirties—old enough to be the mother of a teenager, but young enough to be attractive as a woman in her own right. In fact, she reminds me of you, which is probably why I was so conscious of her.’

Laura groaned, doubting my sincerity. ‘Stick to the point.’

Being serious, I was momentarily disconcerted. ‘Which is, that I was more interested in mother than daughter. You know what I thought of John Swinton’s performance: totally convincing as a father, yet quite an old man. Well, Lady Capulet was no less credible, but she seemed young enough to be his daughter.’

‘You’ll have to take that up with the casting department, or the director.’

‘Clever clogs! Since you’re so superior tell me how Shakespeare described Lady Capulet.’

Laura reflected for a few moments; a frown of concentration giving way to a rueful smile. ‘You know, I don’t believe he does! From memory he only goes as far as describing Capulet as being around seventy, and his wife about half that age—but you should know that either he went overboard, making his characters larger than life and instantly memorable - Falstaff is a typical example—or they were no more than cardboard cut-outs. Lady Capulet comes into that category; it is left to individual actresses to flesh her out.’

‘In sixteenth-century Europe, a seventy-year-old man would have been old. But she would still have been young, in that level of society as least, young enough to have interests outside the family, lovers even…a beautiful woman like that.’

‘How you manipulate the facts to suit your own argumentl’ Laura protested. ‘Who said anything about her being beautiful? Certainly not Shakespeare. You need to distinguish between the character and Margaret Summers.’

‘Who has ever seen a plain Juliet? She must have inherited her looks from someone!’

Laura was plainly bored with my game. ‘Matthew Coll, we see each other so infrequently I don’t know whether to feel neglected or flattered that you come at all—then you spend the whole evening talking about other women. If you want to find out more about your dream goddess, read the play—in your own time. I’m going to bed!’

‘Talking about a character in a play hardly constitutes being unfaithful; nor does it stop me wanting to know a bit more about her, and you’ve just admitted that she’s little more than a cypher in Shakespeare’s text!

‘He was no fool; he had his reasons,’ she muttered, darkly.

‘It was probably cut in the final draft,’ I speculated.

Laura started to clear the coffee cups. ‘Then take a look at his notes,’ she called from the kitchen.

‘Where do I find those?’

‘You’re the book sleuth.’

My hopes of completing the picture were beginning to evaporate, but I was reluctant to let Laura have the last word. ‘It’s not a book! I don’t know much about plays, and even less about sixteenth-century drama. My knowledge of William Shakespeare is limited to the fact that he came from Stratford-on-Avon, and was known as the Bawd, or Bored…’

‘Pointed beard, and going a bit thin on top?’

‘That’s probably one of the other Shakespeares -Bacon or Marlowe. Not that I care who gets the credit for Romeo and Juliet, as long as I can take a peek at the notes. If you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, we’ll start with Will’s tomb. You can carry the lantern.’

‘What’s in it for me? I’m not infatuated with the woman.’

‘Fame and fortune—when we find them.’

‘I can see it now! Ten million dollars at auction and we get married on the proceeds, and live happily ever after.’

‘Pounds,’ I insisted, uneasy at the veiled reference to my apparent reluctance to commit myself to marriage. In fact, my only hesitation was over the difference in income - mine from the modest turnover of a country bookshop, and that of Laura as director of a major London advertising agency. One would have to go, yet neither of us could be expected to sacrifice the work we loved; at least, I was scared to put it to the test.

‘Enough of daydreams,’ Laura concluded. ‘If you are serious about researching the Capulets it would be better to consult Shakespeare’s source than his notes. He got the idea from a long poem by an Englishman, Arthur Brooke. If my memory isn’t playing tricks that was supposed to be a translation of an original story by an Italian whose name escapes me.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘I should have known. Wasn’t it George Bernard Shaw who said that Shakespeare could tell a good story if someone told it first?’

‘It’s always been fashionable to knock him,’ she pointed out. ‘I don’t know about Shaw, but Byron said much the same.’ She dug into her memory. ‘Something like “He had no invention as to stories, none whatsoever. He took all his plots from old novels and threw them into classical shape”.’

‘In this case the story was double pinched?’

Laura shrugged. ‘Brooke implied that it was a true account of something that had happened shortly before—in which case it couldn’t be plagiarism. But as Byron said, few of Shakespeare’s plots were original; it was the quality of the writing that set him apart.’

‘But he did stick to the same plot?’

‘I can’t remember much of Brooke’s poem; I only read it once at university. I think they were pretty much the same, except that in the original version the story took longer to unfold—about nine months. Shakespeare condensed it into seven action-packed days.’

‘Just another pot-boiling hack.’

‘And I think I’m right in saying that Brooke’s Juliet was sixteen; Shakespeare knocked off a couple of years.’

‘Dirty old man! I wonder what he would have made of Alice in Wonderland?’

It was not until I had dived in at the deep end in becoming an antiquarian bookseller that I realised just how much there was to learn, although I was able to take consolation in the fact I was not alone. Distinguished elders of the trade, such as my friend Wilfred Frensham, a former President of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association, conceded that even a lifetime of study was barely enough to encompass such vast parameters when one might be dealing with incunabula one day, and modern first editions the next.

Because of the demands of the business I could not specialise, and my knowledge of sixteenth-century literature was very superficial. I had never heard of Arthur Brooke, for example, but thanks to Laura’s lead, I found him and his intriguing poem at the British Library. One of the most exciting features of the library is the facility available to all researchers of being able to handle original material, instead of some characterless photocopy or facsimile. Reverently I took the fragile 88-page book from its protective slipcase and looked at the title page which, to my surprise, did not even identify Brooke, merely hinting at further mystery:

The Tragical! Historye of Romeus and Juliet and nowe in Englishe by Ar.Br.

A footnote on the last page read:

Imprinted at London in Flete strete within Temble barre, at the signe of the hand and starre, Richard Tottill the xix day of November, An.do. 1562

Crosschecking later, I was to learn that the only evidence linking Ar.Br. with Arthur Brooke was an epitaph after he had been drowned in a shipwreck off the South Coast in 1563. He did not live to appreciate its success; the poem being reprinted by Tottill in 1582 and by another printer five years later—several years before Shakespeare produced his version.

Sixteenth-century English differs very little from the language to which we have become accustomed four hundred years later, and once the reader becomes familiar with certain quaint but standard features of spelling, and to substituting the letter ‘s’ for the printed T, it is not difficult to follow manuscripts and printed books of the period. I was fascinated by the suggestion on the title page that Brooke somehow translated an earlier version from Italian, and by the following passage in his four-page introduction:

Though I saw the same argument lately set foorth on stage with more commendation, than I can looke for: (being there much better set forth than I have or can dooe) yet the same matter penned as it is, may serve to lyke good effect, if the reader do brynge with them lyke good myndes, to consider it, which hath the more encouraged me to publishe it, such as it is.

Ar.Br.

This indicated to my less-than-open mind that Romeo and Juliet might have been based on a true story, even that my vision of Lady Capulet had actually existed. I read on…

To this ende (good reader) is this tragicall matter written, to describe unto thee a couple of unfortunate lovers, thralling themselves to unhonest desire, neglecting the authoritie and advise of parents and frendes, conferring their principall councells with dronken gossyppes, and superstitous friers (the naturally fitte instrumentes of unchastitie) attemptying all adventures of peryll, for the attaynying of their wishes lust…abusyng the honourable name of lawefull mirage, to cloke the shame of stolne contracts, finallye by all meanes of unhonest lyfe, hastening to most unhappye deathe…

It took me most of the day, but Brooke had not put any flesh on the ghost of Lady Capulet. There was a cross-reference to an Italian writer called Bandello from whom Brooke gained his inspiration, and whose work was available at the library in a later English translation - but, tempting though the prospect was, I did not have the time to chase ghosts. Then I thought of a probable way of subsidising my research; to introduce Arthur Brooke to the literary world, then simply find a first edition or two, and a buyer.

Finding a buyer presented no problem because I had what amounted to a standing order from Bill Hellman, curator of fine books at the Concorde University, Wisconsin. A fellow romantic, Hellman had amassed in a few short years one of the most impressive collections of Elizabethan literature outside Great Britain; he would not need much pressure to dig deep into his coffers for a pre-Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, On the telephone, however, I wished I had not allowed my enthusiasm to get out of hand.

‘Arthur Brooke? You’re kidding,’ he groaned, misinterpreting the reason for my transatlantic call, when most of our business was conducted through correspondence. ‘Where will I find that sort of money more than half-way through this year’s budget allocation?'

‘Merely wanted to get your reaction,’ I hedged.

‘I’ll never speak to you again if you let it go to someone else,’ he retorted. ‘Don’t worry about the price—we’ll sell something if necessary.’

‘Hang on, Bill,’ I protested. I didn’t say I had a copy -you jumped to conclusions.’

‘You mean you haven’t agreed a price yet?’

‘There’s nothing to agree! I was picking your brains. I’ve just seen a copy at the British Library, and one idea led to another.’

‘Positive thinking?

‘Exactly. Most of the time a bookseller reacts to opportunities; he goes after material offered in catalogues or at auction. For once I was thinking of trying to find something that is not immediately available.’

I sensed a mental shrug. ‘As long as I’m not paying for this call…’

I told him about my recent obsession. ‘I didn’t realise Brooke would get you so excited,’ I added.

He laughed at my naivety. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, are you kidding? The copy you saw was one of only two known to survive—that is, of the first edition. The other is at the Bodleian, and there is a third at Cambridge, although not complete. Now perhaps you realise why I was so taken aback at the prospect of owning our own.’

‘What about the Bandello?’

‘I’ll give you an open cheque for a first or second English edition or in Italian—or for the French version by Boisteau. My guess is that there must be something somewhere, but not necessarily in England. But unless it has been ‘lost’ in one of those massive collections where they can’t see the wood for the trees, or they’ve still got a backlog to catalogue, I doubt whether any of your own libraries will have anything of interest to us—at least, not anything they would be prepared to sell.’

I suspected he was right, but still wasted ten days eating humble pie until I began to wonder about the cost in time and income of a trip to Verona which was, after all, the birthplace of the Romeo and Juliet legend. At first I dismissed the idea as impractical, not to say irresponsible, but more positive thoughts reminded me that I had taken over the bookshop because I loved old books, not because I was dedicated to running a business. As my romanticism asserted itself, the rebellion took on a logic of its own; I had not had a holiday since coming to Ardley, and even though I might still be book-hunting, a change was as good as a rest - and the one thing that was not in short supply in Italy in late May was sunshine - indispensable, they say, for recharging one’s batteries.

Two

With someone as reliable as Charlie Appleton in charge, I was able to leave the bookshop for a couple of weeks with a clear conscience. Unfortunately, the only time Charlie was available turned out to be inconvenient for Laura, but even that failed to dampen my mounting excitement, although being worried she might think me self-centred, I did my best to make it sound like a business trip. At the same time, I was hedging my bets -convincing myself that it was the holiday I needed, and that any serious book-buying would be the icing on the cake.

The preliminary spadework produced encouraging results, the Italian Tourist Office in London giving me the name and address of one of their country’s leading authorities on the legend of the lovers of Verona. It transpired that Aldo Agostini was also a bibliophile who travelled the world buying and occasionally selling early Italian and European printed books and manuscripts. When I checked with Frenshams, the Mayfair antiquarian booksellers, they knew him well. Wilfrid Frensham, the chairman, had been helpful in the past, and when he offered to provide me with a letter of introduction, I began to feel that fate had come over to my side.

One might assume that Agostini had long since sold any material surplus to his needs, and would hardly dispose of anything from his personal collection, but I hoped that he would be sufficiently disarmed by Wilfrid’s implied support to reward my initiative in some practical manner. That turned out to be the first of a number of irrational assumptions.

Certainly, Wilfrid’s charm was disarming, but sometimes it could be a double-edged weapon—intoxicating enough to impair one’s judgement. In this instance he had no axe to grind, so I can only imagine it was his sense of humour that presented me with a picture that was at once both truthful and misleading. It seemed that when he was not buying old books, Agostini was a tutor of Latin. Wilfrid’s description of a distinguished scholar of total dedication, whose ‘awesome’ knowledge gave him a serenity not out of place in a religious order, somehow conjured up the image of an angelic monk, or an absent-minded professor.

Agostini proved to be so different from Wilfrid’s picture that when we met I was tempted to look over his shoulder for someone else. He was a veritable giant, bubbling over with energy; a man with a chunky face so disfigured by a deep scar that it resembled a gargoyle decorating the architecture of one of his beloved churches. At least three inches taller than me, he had the bulk of an American football linebacker; an already striking appearance accentuated by the scar which ran from the forehead down across the right eye, miraculously undamaged, to the fleshy cheekbone: in any other than a respected scholar it would have passed for a duelling scar. Curly brown hair was liberally flecked with silver and I guessed he was in his middle sixties, although the aura of throbbing power made him seem considerably younger. The warmth of large grey eyes when the chunky face cracked into a smile of welcome was so reassuring that, having recovered from the initial surprise, I found his appearance not unattractive.

However, after an exchange of pleasantries in which it was apparent that Wilfrid’s name had melted any instinctive caution, his reaction to my mission was sympathetic but depressing. ‘There are always a number of run-of-the-mill reprints changing hands but nothing worthwhile - at least, nothing that would cover your expenses,’ he pointed out. His English was near faultless with only the faintest accent, giving me the impression that he was not a man who did anything by half.

Concealing my disappointment, I was nevertheless annoyed with myself for permitting nostalgia to overcome business judgement; it was, after all, my living—yet to a dedicated collector like Agostini who would leave no stone unturned in the quest for items that still eluded him, the cost was usually of secondary importance, and he saw nothing illogical about my purely speculative visit. Encouraged by his friendliness and understanding, I confessed the reason for my belated interest in the story of the Capulets and Montagues, and was rewarded by a grin of approval; although when I asked if there was any evidence that the two families had existed, he shook his head. ‘I have spent much of my adult life trying to find these very answers, and still have no conclusive evidence. You can imagine what rumours abound in the city; my own mother believed we had Capulet blood. It was enough for her to believe without evidence—but not me. As an historian I must conclude that the evidence does not exist; however, as a romantic like you - and my mother—I cannot shake off my…intestinal…? no, my gut reaction, that they actually lived.’

‘What about Bandello? Is there any way of ascertaining the degree of artistic licence? Did he use real people as the basis for his characters, or merely elaborate on a legend?’

The Italian shrugged. ‘Bandello was little more than another name in a sequence of writers. English historians concentrate on Arthur Brooke and say that he borrowed the story from Bandello. The story lines are remarkably similar—but, in fact, there are so many differences that to me it reads like an original work, and surprisingly well written. But the original narrator of the Romeo and Juliet story was Luigi da Porto, a writer from Vincenza who died in 1529—six years before his novel was published in Venice. It must have been well received because it was reprinted in 1539, and again fourteen years later - although one must not forget that Venice was the very heart of the printing world in those days—binding too. There was a constant demand for the new books and after they had run through the manuscripts going back to the classical days of Athens and Rome, there was an obvious incentive to reproduce the potential bestsellers of the period.’

My admission that I had not heard of da Porto was shrugged off. ‘His novel has very little merit; its only significance is that Bandello borrowed from it, and that in time was translated and embellished by a Frenchman called Pierre Boisteau.’

‘At least I’ve heard of him,’ I conceded. ‘At the British Library there is a pre-Shakespeare version by another Englishman, William Paynter; it is included in an anthology called The Palace of Pleasure in two volumes, the second of which carried the Romeo and Juliet story, and that was published five years after the Arthur Brooke poem.’

He nodded. ‘I have every version in all the editions in my personal collection, which you must inspect before you leave. Paynter seems to have done a literal translation because it does not read well—and I’m sure that is not just my opinion. The sub-title refers to extracts from the story of Bandel - our Signor Bandello.’

‘Then what was da Porto’s source?’

‘That is the confusing part,’ he said, with a shake of the head. ‘In my estimation there is more than a coincidental resemblance between various incidents in Romeo and Juliet and what happened in the Greek romance of Xenophon of Ephesus called The love adventures of Habrocomes and Anthea, but Boisteau claimed that the story was so recent that in his words, “the tears of the people of Verona are not yet dry!” So was he lying, or merely stretching a few facts?’

‘And there is nothing in the city records to throw any light on the origins of the story?’

‘Names - for what they are worth. The Capulets, obviously, were part of the history of Verona, as indeed are what you have come to know as the Montagues -although their name was probably Montecchi or Montiocoli. But no one we can positively identify with characters in the play.’

‘And Juliet’s balcony, and her tomb, in the guide books?’

‘Merely the tourist industry giving the public what it wants. We are not alone. Have you been to Bethlehem, or…?’

‘So, I’ll never know whether Lady Capulet was only a beauty conjured up by my imagination, I interjected.

‘Or just another Italian matriarch grossly overweight from a diet of pasta and minestrone?’ His smile was sympathetic. ‘We do not know, but there is nothing wrong with dreams. And cheer up. Although I am pessimistic about the availability of first editions at a reasonable price, you must not give up hope. I will give you an introduction to a few collectors and librarians here and in two or three other cities—Rome, for example, has a couple of excellent booksellers. It is always possible that your visit will coincide with a decision by one of them to sell something. You know how it is, timing? All of us need money, if only to buy something else. Do you have any ideas?’

‘I’ve taken a small advertisement in Arena’, it’s scheduled to appear tomorrow.’ I broke off at his expression of surprise at my choice of the local daily newspaper. ‘It does sound a little naive,’ I conceded. ‘But I thought I could get at the trade through you, and it was just possible that something interesting might turn up in someone’s attic.’

‘Are you forgetting this is Verona?’ His expression indicated that he was too well mannered to dismiss the idea as a waste of time. ‘Can you imagine a single resident of Stratford-on-Avon who hasn’t searched his attic or cellar looking for a Shakespeare First Folio?’

‘Shakespeare, no - but are you saying that Luigi da Porto and Bandello are also household names in Verona?’

Agostini conceded the point. ‘It is just possible that someone may have an old manuscript without realising its value—even other unrelated books which you might sell to recoup some of your expenses. I would be happy to advise you.

‘Thanks. I’d need someone anyway. My knowledge of Italian is very basic so I wouldn’t have a clue with anything a few hundred years old.’

He shrugged. ‘Better to have a second opinion. At the risk of sounding paranoic there are other problems. Enthusiasts like you and I are vulnerable—no matter how experienced or clever we think we are - because we want to believe.’

‘You mean from con-men?’

He seemed amused by the expression, but did not elaborate.

My disappointment was quickly thrown off when Agostini gave me a conducted tour of his famous collection. I knew many collectors, but none whose books and manuscripts dwarfed those of most leading university and institutional libraries. Venice had been the operational base for some of the greatest 15th-century printers who had come from all over Europe, and Agostini seemed to have superb examples of the work of them all. Treasure followed treasure, inevitably diminishing the impact of the collection’s quality, although I remained spellbound from the first. It might have been frustrating not to be able to decipher the Latin or Italian of the period, but Agostini not only translated the title pages and occasional extract from the text, but gave me a potted background to each volume.

The rarer items were housed under glass, but I was privileged to hold—‘caress’ would be a more accurate description - such landmarks in print as Roberto Valturio’s De re militari, a book on military engineering, and the first illustrated book on a technical subject printed by Johannes in Verona in 1472; another delight was Arte de ban morire, also printed in Verona by the brothers Giovanni and Alberto Alvise in 1478, outstanding as one of the earliest examples of flower decoration designed from print-fonts.

Such was my enthusiasm that, by the time I left, I had practically forgotten my own quest for pre-Shakespeare material on Romeo, Juliet and their feuding families.

On my second night in Verona I was disconcerted by a marked change in the attitude of Guido Rossi, the hotel manager. Since my arrival he had been perfectly correct, courteous if somewhat distant as befitted the status of the manager of a better-class four-star hotel, but now as he buttonholed me in the lobby on my way back from an afternoon of sightseeing, his manner verged on the obsequious. It was soon apparent that the reason for my sudden elevation in his esteem was in the interest shown in me by (in his words) one of the city’s most eminent citizens, Ettore Vespucci, at that very moment honouring the hotel with his presence. It was clear from the respectful tone that Signor Vespucci’s interest would not be wasted on any ordinary tourist. Making it clear that an invitation from this paragon of virtue was one that could not be declined, he announced that the great man was waiting in the cocktail bar where, he hoped, I would join him for an aperitif.

I had not heard of Vespucci, and instinctively resented the implication of a summons; unlike Rossi, I did not measure people by the degree of influence exerted by their position in society. However, since his arrival could only have been the result of my advertisement, the meeting might well be in my interests.

Prepared to dislike the man on sight, my initial reaction was surprisingly favourable. Vespucci had a clean and wholesome look - rather like a Latin version of Wilfrid Frensham whose own remarkably distinguished appearance had originally put me on my guard - too smooth by half, I had thought - but who had proved the sincerity of his friendship on a number of occasions. As I entered the room he was sitting at the far end in a high-back chair which, from the elegant way in which he lounged, might have passed as a throne. The face in profile was aristocratic and quite handsome; thin to the point of emaciation, yet a glowing tan made him the picture of health. Thick white hair reaching down to the nape of his neck accentuated the tan so that, but for his aquiline features, there might have been a touch of negro blood.

In close-up the Adonis image was somewhat spoiled by deep crow’s-feet lines at the corners of his eyes, although it could be said that they added character, drawing attention to a luminescent quality about the large brown eyes. I envied the man’s striking looks, and to rub salt into the wound, the cut of his light grey suit was so immaculate it would have cost more than my entire wardrobe.

His greeting was appropriately modest - thanking me for sparing the time. The voice was soft but incisive, the English good despite a heavy accent. From what little I knew of the language I suspected he might have come originally from the south of Italy, probably Naples; on the other hand that very early impression might have been influenced by his swarthy complexion.

‘Time isn’t a problem,’ I admitted. ‘My trip is part business, part vacation; this is a lovely region. But what can I do for you?’

‘My wife and I were hoping you would be our guest for dinner later in the week,’ he announced. ‘My wife happens to be a collector of modern books—I think you call them first editions—so there is already a common interest. In any case we very much enjoy the company of intellectuals.’

I controlled a smile, uncertain whether he was resorting to flattery or had merely used the wrong word; it was, after all, good mannered of him to speak in English. ‘I know something about old books—it doesn’t make me an intellectual,’ I said.

‘Time will tell,’ he replied. ‘Since guests at my villa are not required to sit entrance examinations, I am prepared to back my judgement.’

I showed my teeth politely. ‘Then I would be honoured, although…’

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘Forgive my bluntness, I am not accustomed to such hospitality. After all, I am a complete stranger…’

Vespucci raised a disparaging hand. ‘Verona is not a large city. Your advertisement in the newspaper was, in effect, a calling-card—so I do not regard you as a stranger. If you happened to represent an official body, no matter how boring—there might well have been an official reception of some sort; since you are a private individual I feel an obligation—as an individual—to offer the same welcome; I am, after all, a councillor.’

‘It’s very gracious of you, Signor Vespucci.’

‘Not at all,' he replied. ‘Should my wife and I ever find ourselves in your wonderful country, you may even wish to return the compliment—although, rest assured, that is not a precondition. Meanwhile, you are in Verona—on what I call my territory, so please feel free to call on me—as a lawyer, elder statesman, and, hopefully, as a friend - at any time.’

My initial suspicion, submerged by his good manners, wriggled to the surface again. Was he merely fishing for business? My expression did not change but Vespucci might have been telepathic because he hastily added, ‘in an honorary capacity, you understand. My principal concern in this instance is the city’s good name, and since the interests of Verona and yourself are synonymous there can be no question of fees. We have a duty to protect visitors from those who do not share these ideals.’

‘You mean the confidence tricksters?’

‘Call them what you will. Every collector or souvenir hunter encounters leeches who promise the proverbial crock of gold; it is a constant problem in any city of antiquity, but especially ours, for obvious reasons.’

I nodded, but pointed out that it was not my intention to do business on street corners.

He laughed. ‘The men I had in mind are not quite as obvious as that. Admittedly, most of these frauds are insignificant; either the victims never find out they have been duped, or they are too embarrassed to make a fuss. But once in a while there is a scandal, such as last year when a German tourist with more money than sense purchased what he believed to be a lock of Juliet’s hair—can you credit such stupidity? I realise you are a professional, but we can all be tempted by the right offer.’

‘You are the second person to warn me about con-men,’ I pointed out. ‘The other was dottore Agostini. It is very reassuring.’

‘The professore, as he is known here, is very knowledgeable,’ Vespucci conceded. ‘I would go so far to say that he is the country’s leading authority on the history of Verona. I should have realised that your advertisement would not escape attention.’

‘As a matter of fact I was given a letter of introduction by a mutual friend.’

He nodded, but I could not help wondering if the accompanying smile was not a little cynical.

While awaiting a response to the advertisement, I occupied my time taking in the usual tourist sights. To the history buff Verona is an exceptionally attractive city principally of Roman origin, rich enough to withstand the inevitable element of commercialism built around the story of Romeo and Juliet. Even so, in Via Capello, where the famous balcony had been reconstructed, I found it hard not to dismiss Agostini’s warning, and to enter into the romantic spirit of the story as I read the tablet over the door. Translated, it says:

These were the houses of the Capulets

From whence sprang Juliet

For whom

So many gentle hearts have wept

And poets have sung.

Two evenings after our meeting I presented myself at the home of Ettore Vespucci, twelve kilometres outside the city. The outer gate, monitored by a closed-circuit TV camera, swung open at the approach of my taxi, confirming my hunch that Vespucci was no ordinary lawyer. The length of the gravel drive was an indication of the scale of the property—the cost of which must have been way above the income of any practising lawyer, no matter how successful his business. The impression was strengthened when the front door, opened by a white-jacketed manservant, revealed a hallway as palatial as a film set with all the trimmings, including a sweeping semi-circular staircase and an enormous crystal chandelier. I found myself rooted to the spot, awe-struck as any movie fan on a studio tour, wondering whether Vespucci had inherited or married into such wealth; it was inconceivable that an ordinary professional man without a substantial private income could afford to live in such style. My daydream was interrupted by the arrival of Maria Vespucci whose natural beauty so matched the elegance of the setting that speculation about money seemed almost vulgar.

Slightly taller than her husband, she was stunningly attractive, and at first glance considerably younger. Her face was unlined and although the shoulder-length hair was too black to have been natural, the result was so breathtaking it seemed mean even to question it. Indeed, while I would normally regard the vast sums spent on their appearances by so many self-indulgent women as an insult to millions, deprived, or even starving, there was a magic about Maria Vespucci that defied such comparison.

She was wearing a long, low-cut emerald-green evening gown, cut to show off her tanned body, and I was momentarily embarrassed that I had not had the foresight to realise that dinner in this house would demand formal dress. However, my relatively short stay in Verona served as an excuse for not having brought a dinner jacket, and my navy blazer and gaberdine slacks were at least presentable. In any case, Maria Vespucci was an experienced hostess accustomed to putting guests at their ease, and she greeted me as though we were old friends.

There were fourteen at the table, and I had been placed between a couple who spoke very good English and seemed to have interests in common. Yet while that was a tribute to good planning on the part of my hosts, in most respects I was very much the odd person out. During the meal I exchanged what might have been promising glances with a couple of very lovely young women who did not seem to have permanent attachments, but when it became clear that I was not a jet-setter—and worse, a mere ‘tradesman’ - their interest evaporated.

Like the Vespuccis, they belonged to a social grouping I had seldom encountered—the so-called ‘beautiful people’ - and there were few points of contact between us. As a result, the evening was pleasant but inconsequential, and I began to wonder again why Vespucci had invited me into his home, when our brief conversation at the hotel would surely have been sufficient. But as our eyes met across the room, he seemed to sense my preoccupation. He paused only to pour a glass of brandy before coming over and asking me to follow him. We ended up in what he called his study - although the book-lined walls, displaying several thousand leatherbound volumes, represented an antiquarian collection of which many an institutional library would be proud. I assumed the books were his; there were no dust jackets in evidence, which meant that his wife’s editions were housed elsewhere.

To my surprise Vespucci did not comment on the books. Instead, he thrust the balloon glass into my hand with an apology that there had been so little opportunity for us to talk during the evening. ‘It is a problem with large dinner parties,’ he admitted. ‘Normally I can rely on my wife to organise our guests, but I’m afraid she regarded you as my responsibility.’

‘I’ve enjoyed myself,’ I insisted, embarrassed by the hypocrisy but deciding it was the right course in the circumstances; it was not his fault that I felt out of place.

‘So tell me, Matthew, has your advertisement produced any results?’ he enquired.

I shook my head, idly wishing I had seen the label on the brandy bottle; it was unquestionably five-star.

Vespucci frowned, as though it was expected of him. ‘I suppose it is still early, but I hope you did not come all this way for nothing!’

‘Certainly not for nothing,’ I assured him. ‘I needed a break, and I could not have found a more delightful place. Of course, I shall be disappointed if I have to leave completely empty-handed, but as you say, it is still early days. Assuming I have had no significant response by tomorrow, I intend spending a day or so in Padua. I understand the university has an outstanding collection of books and materials relating to the early days of printing. Then perhaps a couple more in Rome, where I have the names of a few booksellers. That gives me ample time to pick up any late response from the ad.’

‘What does the good professore say about your prospects?’

‘Not much,’ I conceded. ‘As far as really worth-while material is concerned, he was very pessimistic.’

‘What does “worth-while” mean in this context?’

‘Broadly speaking, early. I would not be interested in anything after the first half of the seventeenth century, unless there was a special feature about the print, or binding.’

‘And did he show you his own collection?’

I nodded. ‘Quite magnificent, but very frustrating. I have several customers who would pay the earth for so many individual items, but obviously he would not sell even if we could agree a price.’

‘You saw everything?’

I shrugged, finding it easy to slip into such a familiar Latin mannerism. ‘It would have taken days. I imagine I was shown the cream.’

‘What about manuscripts?’

‘In one of the cabinets there was a draft in da Porto’s own hand, which I suppose must have been the jewel in the crown, worth a small fortune. It looked too fragile to handle.’

He nodded. ‘It’s common knowledge that Agostini has turned down a number of lucrative offers for that. Nothing else?’

‘Nothing else? Isn’t that rich enough?’ But assuming I had misunderstood the question, I added, apologetically, ‘There were a number of manuscripts, but nothing of any consequence.’

‘Nothing original, in the historical, as opposed to the literary sense?’ he persisted. ‘Nothing relating to the Capulets or Montagues—or their contemporaries?’ When I laughed, he showed his own teeth, but added: ‘Not even a letter, or an account book?’

‘I didn’t know any existed,’ I conceded. ‘Dr Agostini rather poured cold water on my dreams of unearthing something in that category.’

‘But you were hoping to find something unusual?’

Sensing that he would not laugh, I confessed my earlier aspirations, adding, ‘But now I am prepared to accept it was wishful thinking.’

‘On the authority of one man?’

‘It was you who said that Dr Agostini was the leading expert.’

‘But not omniscient. Presumably you haven’t yet double-checked with other experts? Agostini is good, of course, but history is not always the most precise of sciences, and historians seldom agree completely. The trouble with Agostini - and so many of his colleagues -is he thinks—they think—they are infallible. I can produce two equally eminent professors—less known in your country because they do not have the same flair for self-publicity - who are convinced of the flesh and blood existence of the families who made Verona what it is today.’

‘Dr Agostini did not deny their existence; he merely said there was no satisfactory evidence.’

‘When a person stakes his reputation on a theory, it is not always in his interest to admit that evidence if it turns up.’

‘I can’t believe that a man of Dr Agostini’s reputation and integrity would conceal evidence.’

‘You are assuming that reputation and integrity go hand in hand. Integrity is a much abused word,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘It is difficult to imagine any scholar concealing evidence; it would be denying the reason for his existence, especially after a lifetime of study.’

‘Perhaps age has made me cynical. I would agree in the case of a scholar who had no outside interests and lived only for his work, but you forget that Agostini is also a collector of international reputation.’

‘What are you getting at?’

Vespucci shrugged. ‘Let us just say that as a collector our friend is very single-minded, if not obsessive. If anything of significance had emerged, Agostini would be the person most likely to find it. Might he not be tempted.…to keep it to himself?’

‘You’re very vehement, as though you knew something.’

His smile was mechanical. ‘I get to hear of things.’

‘Then why not confront him?’

‘I have.’

‘And he denies it?’

He did not bother to answer. ‘Normally I respect a man’s right to do what he wishes with his own money. Thank God this is still a free country. But I am concerned with the moral issue, you understand. I love our city, and I believe her claim to the artefacts and treasures of history must come before that of any individual.’

‘If such an option exists,’ I argued. ‘Unless you can support allegation with facts, surely Dr Agostini is entitled to the benefit of the doubt?’

He shrugged again. ‘In a court of law. And if I repeated publically what I have just told you he could sue me—not that he would dare. But I am not going public—yet. I confided in you because for the moment you have a relationship of sorts with the man, which means you are in a better position to catch him off guard.’

‘To spy on him?’

‘If I tell you that my information comes from someone in his own household, a servant who was later dismissed…’

‘What is this person supposed to have seen?’

‘A journal. He saw it all right.’

‘Written in 16th-century Italian or Latin—which he was able to read and identify as the hand of a specific individual?’

Vespucci avoided my eyes. ‘The man is a servant, not a scholar, or I would have taken a formal deposition. You and I depend on knowledge and experience—but there are times when we fall back on instinct. I cannot remember the English colloquialism: gut something?’

‘Gut reaction,’ I supplied. ‘You may be right. I happen to like Aldo Agostini, but that doesn’t automatically make him a saint in my eyes. I have no right to question him, but if the opportunity arises I’ll bear your suspicion in mind.’

Three

A belated response to my advertisement in Arena awaited my return from Padua and Rome. Three were in the form of letters which I managed to transcribe with the help of Rossi, the hotel manager. Together, they represented only five specific offers, ostensibly unremarkable yet for that very reason encouraging, and with Agostini’s promised advice, worthy of inspection.

A fourth was a short note on monogrammed notepaper from Isabella, the Marchesa Contini. Written in faultless English, the note merely identified the Marchesa as a student of local history, suggesting that a meeting and exchange of ideas could be to our mutual benefit. The tone was modest but I was intrigued enough to show the contents to Rossi, whose eyes widened, impressed by my growing circle of influential acquaintances - bestowing on me a status which, by association, rubbed off on the hotel. ‘The Marchesa is a remarkable person,’ he proclaimed with such a solemnity that I wondered what impressed him more, the title, or the woman.

Asked to elaborate, Rossi frowned at the difficulty of explaining the obvious. He shrugged. ‘Everyone knows about Isabella Contini!’

‘I don’t, that is why I asked.’

When it dawned on him that I was speaking the truth, his expression reflected the problem of trying to confine the long list of her attributes to a simple statement, and I began to take a quite unreasonable dislike to this latest paragon of virtue. ‘If I have to select one aspect for which she will be remembered in future,’ he said, ‘it would be her knowledge of Venetian and Florentine painting in which the city is so rich, in addition to our own artistic tradition.’ I suppose my expression did not register the right degree of respect because he hurried on, ‘Not only is she an acknowledged expert, but she has paid for the restoration and cleaning of many of Verona’s art treasures, from her own money.’

‘Her own?’ I was beginning to see what impressed him so much about the old girl.

He nodded. ‘Money she inherited, as distinct from the Marchese’s own fortune. The Marchese is equally eminent in the business world - one of our biggest industrialists - but the money he gives to charity generally goes to the better-known causes, famine relief and UNICEF, whereas his lady’s interests lie in the arts.’

I could visualise the Marchesa: slightly dotty, perhaps, but a person with her heart in the right place; no confidence trickster with designs on my relatively tiny budget for buying books. On the other hand, picking the brains of another local historian, while interesting enough, was a pleasure that could wait until after Dr Agostini and I had investigated the books on offer.

Three further enquiries had been made by telephone, and with an English-speaking receptionist on hand I returned these calls. Although there was no reason to suspect any link, all three enquiries were from men claiming to be collectors in various stages of financial embarrassment, reluctantly prepared to relinquish one of their personal treasures. After the warning from Agostini and Vespucci I was on my guard, but it transpired that the most unlikely caller was probably the most genuine, and that what he had to offer came into much the same category as the material described in the letters.

Of the others, one was of dubious origin, but with intriguing possibilities, a 1502 edition of Pietro Bembo’s De Aetna, the work of the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius, which, from the date, I hoped might feature the then revolutionary italic font his company had introduced. Without my reference books on hand I had no means of checking, but it was a reasonable supposition given the date. What was more suspicious (or encouraging, depending on which way one looked at it) was that the vendor did not refer to italic print, preferring to assure me that the bookplate was unique in bearing the coat of arms of the House of Capulet, together with a set of undecipherable initials which he conceded might belong to members of that family. The bookplate, which would have been the icing on the cake, sounded too good to be true, but if the book about which he had been so off-hand did feature the very early use of the italic type-face, then it was worth buying.

The third call I returned was from a man whose English and sales patter was by far the best, but who had set his sights too high. His offer of a two-page letter from Juliet to her lover sounded so ludicrous that I was more amused than irritated. Modestly, the proud owner conceded that the content was inconsequential, even childish, overlooking the fact that even a shopping list or an account of the weather, as the first sample of her handwriting ever found would be worth a fortune.

Remembering that without Dr Agostini’s input I would not have been so complacent, I resisted the temptation to put the phone down, wondering how well he had done his homework. ‘How can we be certain that the letter is genuine?’ I demanded, with what I hoped was the right degree of greed.

He was cunning enough not to be too confident. ‘No one can be certain beyond the smallest element of doubt. But there are certain clues, and once you have examined the document, I’m sure you will share my conviction.’

I pretended to agree. ‘This is always the problem when we see something for the first time, but before I purchased anything of that magnitude I would need to see the results of laboratory tests on the notepaper and the ink.’

‘That has already been done,’ he replied. ‘I anticipated that you could not just take my word. It is not as though we know each other.’

‘Where did you manage to get the tests done so quickly? The advertisement appeared less than a week ago.’

‘I did not explain myself very well,’ he insisted, confidence undiminished. ‘My English is, er, rusty? I meant to say when I decided I would have to sell I arranged for the tests so that I would have the necessary documentation.’

‘Which you now have?’

‘On headed paper, of course, and signed by the two senior chemists.’

‘When did that arrive?’

‘When can I show you the letter?’ he enquired, apparently not catching the question.

‘What about the price?’

‘You must make me an offer. I am a collector, not a dealer,’ he demurred. ‘I am not too familiar with current market values for anything as unique as this. I was contemplating putting it up for auction when your advertisement appeared. It seemed like fate; a direct sale would be saving a considerable amount in the way of commission.’

‘But there would have to be a reserve price at auction, so you must have some idea of what you expect.’

‘I would have left that to their experts. The other problem with an auction, the people with the most money would be from abroad, and with something so unique the Government might refuse an export licence.’

‘I would be taking it abroad.’

‘But with a private transaction, no one need know until it is out of the country.’

‘I might be caught.’

‘A tiny letter, two pages. It would go inside a book. Who would notice?’

‘It is still a risk.’

‘The price could take that into consideration. Suggest one - to show you are serious.’

I pretended to consider the matter, hesitating. ‘The problem is that such a short letter, in isolation, is like a book with pages missing. If only there were something else, a reply, for example.’

There was a short pause as he agonised over how to reel me in, until greed got the upper hand. ‘At this moment I have only the one letter, but…’

‘You could get others?’

‘I cannot promise anything, but…’

Tired of the game, I put down the receiver.

An inspection of the books I had been offered was carried out in a series of appointments in the lounge of the hotel, with Dr Agostini sitting in as my advisor - for which I had reason to be grateful, for virtually none of the material met my initial expectations. Agostini enabled me to hedge my bets by identifying books on which I might ensure a modest profit through re-sale even to Italian institutional bodies if my own outlets failed to show an interest.

When Gino Rinaldi, the man with the Capulet bookplate, arrived, a pained smile was evidence of his reluctance to part with a beloved book, but that he had no hard feelings and was prepared to make the inevitable sacrifice. I was unimpressed by the salesmanship, yet as I stood up to shake hands the smile became broader and his face was transformed. Aware as I was that appearances can be deceptive, it was obvious that Rinaldi’s personality had a warmth that was both reassuring and infectious, and I hoped we could do business. As he approached, Agostini had been writing in his notebook, slumped in his chair facing away from the entrance and lobby, and with his eyes on me, Rinaldi did not catch sight of my advisor until he was standing beside him. Too late to turn back, the expansive smile evaporated.

Struggling to regain his composure he greeted Agostini first. ‘Professorel What a welcome surprise!’

Agostini grinned expansively! ‘So you are the man with the bookplate!’

‘Not exactly,’ Rinaldi said. ‘I have my doubts. I was hoping that if Signor Coll is an authority on the subject, he would advise me.’

My consultant shrugged, poker-faced, as I took the book, gingerly lifting the leather-bound cover to examine the bookplate. The coat of arms looked genuine enough as did the undecipherable initials written in ink, and it would take a laboratory examination of that ink to determine its age, but Rinaldi’s loss of confidence on spotting Agostini was enough to convince me that he was no honest collector. Nevertheless, glancing with enforced casualness at the famous Aldus symbol of the Dolphin & Anchor on the title page, and at the text set in italic print, I was excited enough by the book itself. I turned to Dr Agostini, and out of Rinaldi’s view, winked. ‘A fake. Do you agree?’ He nodded and I turned back to Rinaldi. ‘I’m sorry, but you have had a wasted journey.’

Far from disappointed, Rinaldi seemed relieved at escaping so lightly. He shrugged elaborately. ‘I am disappointed, of course, but I did not pay much for it, so I am not really out of pocket.’

‘It’s an attractive little book; keep it,’ I urged. ‘The mere fact that it was printed by Aldus gives it some minor value by association, so it can only appreciate over the years.’

He nodded, and having lost a sale was anxious to get away.

‘If you really are pressed for cash, I am prepared to take it off your hands. I suggest $40 is a fair price.’ I turned to Agostini. ‘Or am I allowing sentiment to effect my judgement? Would I get my money back?’

He pursed his lips and frowned, so I hastily added, ‘Perhaps I was a little rash. It has no value, apart from its age. I cannot offer more than $25.’

Rinaldi stood on his dignity. ‘I would be prepared to let it go for $40, not a cent less.’

‘Keep it,’ I urged.

‘$40,’ he insisted, ‘but only because I need the money.’

I shrugged. ‘I know how you feel.’

When Rinaldi had gone I gave a sigh of relief and turned triumphantly to Agostini. ‘I never take advantage of an ordinary person who does not understand books, but I had no compunction with Mr Rinaldi who, I assumed from his initial reaction to you, was a crook. If he deals in old books he should have known about the italic font—although I hope the joke wasn’t on me, that it wasn’t a clever double bluff.’

Dr Agostini smiled. ‘The book is genuine enough. I know Rinaldi. He is a likable rogue, and he knows his history, but men like him who capitalise on the world-wide interest in the Romeo and Juliet legend seldom look any farther than the city’s borders. Why should he be interested in the history of printing, let alone a printer from Venice?’

‘I didn’t know if it was a first edition, but judging by the year it must have been one of the first in which Aldus tried the italic font. Would you agree?’

He nodded. ‘In fact, that title was the very first in which he used it. What you have just bought is the second edition. The first, which is in my collection, was published in 1495. For your enlightenment, although Aldus takes the credit, the type was designed by Francesco Griffo of Bologna who worked for him. It is said that Aldus was captivated not so much by the refreshing difference of the type, but by the economic benefits—being condensed and narrower he could get more on a page.’

I opened the book again. ‘I took it for granted the bookplate was a fake. But what about those initials?’

He produced a magnifying glass and examined the tiny lettering before leaning back in a gesture of defeat. ‘Who knows? It depends on where Rinaldi got the plate; it was probably from an old book that was falling to pieces, and of little consequence, and he considered he would get a better deal by attaching it to something more imposing.’

I stared at him, wondering whether he was pulling my leg. ‘I don’t think you would have been so cool if you believed that there was a possibility, at least, that the bookplate was the genuine article.’

He smiled, then shrugged. Without taking his eyes off mine, he continued in the same relaxed tone, adding, ‘Don’t look now, Matthew, but there is a man in the corner just behind you; he is reading a newspaper. But from the number of times he has been over the same page I suspect he is more interested in one of us.’

I was unconvinced, arguing, ‘It’s natural enough to eavesdrop, especially in a transaction like this where we’ve been talking about such fascinating old books. I would have been even more obvious.’

‘Perhaps. We shall see. I am going to the lavatory, but I shall leave the hotel through a side entrance. If he stays, perhaps you are right, or perhaps his interest is in you. But what if he follows me? Meanwhile, keep an eye on him, discreetly. Let us compare notes over a cappucino in about fifteen minutes. There is a café about a hundred metres away if you turn right on leaving the hotel.’

He got to his feet, stretched his limbs and then ambled off in the direction of the men’s room. I resisted the temptation to swivel round for the mystery man’s reaction, but after a couple of minutes considered it was safe enough. The man was still engrossed in the newspaper without the slightest interest in me, it seemed, and I wondered if Dr Agostini had overreacted. The time seemed to drag as I browsed through my purchases, finding it difficult to concentrate. Eventually, conscious of a rustling of paper I sensed the man was preparing to leave, and glanced instinctively at my watch—seven minutes had elapsed. Without bothering to look I was conscious of the man standing, and then he came into view, following in Agostini’s footsteps. When he turned the corner I leapt up, hurried to reception and asked for my books to be kept in a safe place until I could collect them later.

While I would not claim to be an expert on public toilet behaviour patterns, it must be apparent that in general people leave in a manner more relaxed than that in which they go in. So when the stranger came out in a hurry I concluded that his apparent anxiety was due to my friend’s disappearance. As I approached, he was heading for the corridor leading to the side entrance, and more in curiosity than anything else I stepped into his path. A collision was inevitable, and since he was unprepared for my shoulder, he was thrown off balance, cannoning into the wall. He stared at me in bewildered irritation, and I apologised for my clumsiness, but as he tried to push past I got in his way again, faking the uncoordination that comes with disorientation. It enabled me to study his face. His eyes were level with mine which put him fractionally over six feet, and I guessed he was in his late twenties or early thirties. From a distance, quite a good-looking man with even features, his sallow complexion and neat black moustache giving him the appearance of a gigolo; but in close-up the effect was spoiled by deep pock-marks, presumably the result of a bad case of chicken-pox.

This time he uttered a string of obscenities under his breath, and I did not have to be fluent in Italian to realise he had instructed me to drop dead. Taking no chances this time he pushed me out of his way with considerable force, returning the way he had come -through the lounge into the hotel lobby and main entrance, making no effort to conceal his anxiety. Following, I was in time to see him at the front revolving door. Outside he looked both ways carefully and, apparently giving up, hailed a taxi.

When he had gone I followed Agostini’s instructions, and found him in the snackbar. He did not seem surprised by my account but offered no comment, seeming uncharacteristically on edge. Something was worrying him, but he was not prepared to confide in me. Equally I was not prepared to let it go at that, telling him so bluntly, but the big man merely shook his head; it was not a topic for discussion.

I had just ordered a coffee when he announced that he had work to do. Determined not to be brushed aside I left the drink and insisted on accompanying him on the short walk. ‘Your advice was invaluable this afternoon,’ I declared. ‘I owe you a favour. You have a problem of some sort. I want to help.’

The big man smiled. ‘I appreciate the thought, but there is no need. You must forgive an old man’s paranoia.’

I was finding it difficult to keep up with his giant strides. ‘What paranoia? That man was following you. You didn’t imagine it.’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps he mistook me for someone else. Perhaps he wanted to talk, or ask my advice, but was too inhibited to approach me in the normal way.

Perhaps he is a jealous husband.’ He was sheepish enough to soften the lie with a weak smile.

I pretended to take him seriously, if only to narrow the possibilities. ‘Unless you are carrying on with a string of married women, and I doubt if you have the time, yet alone the inclination, you would at least recognise an aggrieved husband. Besides, he wouldn’t have wasted a whole afternoon watching people haggling over old books.’

‘When are you leaving Verona?’ he asked, as though the question had only just occurred to him.

Realising that we were nearing his home, I pressured him. ‘If you refuse to answer my questions, I can’t force you, but I’m not going yet. You owe me the coffee I paid for but did not drink at the café.’

We stopped at the entrance to his apartment. ‘I apologise for my eccentricity,’ he said. ‘I would be pleased to replace your coffee, or offer something stronger, if in return you promise to stop the third degree.’

I laughed, conceding defeat. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

I would have kept my word if fate had not taken a hand. At my instigation Agostini was talking about the early days of Italian printing. As his enthusiasm mounted he evidently found it hard to sit still, and began to pace up and down. So engrossed was he in his hobby-horse that he moved as though in a daze, but then as he passed for the umpteenth time by a window overlooking the street below, he did a double-take as though needing to confirm what he thought he had seen. A moment later he stopped to stare, his voice faltering, and I realised that something had alarmed him.

I got up instinctively, and stood by him at the window, following his gaze. In a doorway almost opposite stood a man reading a newspaper. From his casual manner, leaning one shoulder against the brickwork, I assumed for a moment that it was the man we had run into at the hotel, but on further examination I realised that this man was smaller, and quite a bit older. He stared fixedly at the paper as though he realised he had been spotted and was resisting the temptation to glance up at us. Without conferring we continued to stare until, it seemed, the vibrations became too strong for him, and with an elaborate pretence at looking at his watch he decided to move on. Maintaining the exaggerated mime, he shook his head, as though deciding he was not prepared to wait any longer. Carefully folding his newspaper he strolled off. It was a performance of pure ham and even without our experience at the hotel I would have been suspicious; now I was convinced. But having promised not to ask any more questions I forced myself to remain silent.

However, to my surprise this time, Agostini took the initiative. ‘Somebody has been watching me on and off for the past few weeks,’ he announced, forcing a smile at my expression of concern. ‘Just when I get to the point of going to the police, it stops for a while.’

‘Who are they?’ I demanded.

He shrugged, continuing to stare after the man who was no longer in sight.

‘Do you have any enemies?’

Agostini sat down again. ‘None, as far as I know.’

‘He probably hasn’t got very far,’ I pointed out. ‘Why don’t we go after him? He won’t be expecting it, and there are two of us.’

Agostini’s smile was strained. ‘I’m too old for that sort of thing.’

‘Rubbish! You’re as strong as a bull.’

‘An old bull. The triumph would be short-lived. Besides, what would we hope to achieve? If we detained him against his will he would probably call the police.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of polite conversation. He and his friend at the hotel have upset you. I’d like to give them a taste of their own medicine. They are after something, and I want to find out what it is.’

He shook his head. ‘I can guess.’

‘Your collection?’

‘It’s the only thing I have that is worth anything; at least, the cream of the collection.’

‘Then why don’t you tell the police?’

‘And say what? The most they can do is to send round a crime-prevention officer who will examine the alarm system and lecture me on keeping the doors and windows shut.’

‘Then what do you intend to do?’

‘What can I do? I have what I am assured is a good alarm system, so I should have nothing to worry about on that score. Nor am I afraid of anyone physically. As you implied, there is life in the old dog yet.’

‘Well, if there is anything I can do to help, you have only to ask.’

He reached out and squeezed my shoulder with apparent affection, and I was relieved when the pressure eased.

It was only later I began to doubt the logic of his theory. Why should burglars go to the trouble of watching their intended victim, if not round the clock, then at least in shifts. There had been enough time to break into Agostini’s apartment when he was at the hotel with me for a whole afternoon. I began to suspect he had not told me everything.

The moment I saw the Marchesa I regretted having wasted two days; from now on I would be loath to let her out of my sight. From the note of awe in Rossi’s voice, I had jumped to the conclusion that she was elderly; I was not prepared for a beautiful young woman. Admittedly, the manager’s eulogy had left its mark on my subconscious; to me, intelligence is an essential ingredient of sex appeal. But what threw me off balance more than anything was her striking resemblance to the English actress whose name I had forgotten, but who had captivated me in the role of Lady Capulet. This woman, apart from her elegant modern clothes, might have been a reincarnation of Juliet’s mother; if she had not existed she might have been created by my imagination. I was fascinated by her eyes, their intelligence, alertness, depths that hinted at compassion, the alure more common to emancipated Asian women; a womanliness, in contrast to femininity, if such a distinction can be made.

There is usually a catch, of course, and this time it was in the form of a good-looking young man at her side. From a distance I assumed he was her husband—Rossi had also spoken of a teenage daughter - but as we drew closer and I was able to tear my eyes away from her face to his, I realised that while she was probably in her middle thirties, he was barely out of his teens.

I had no time to reflect on the age gap before the next surprise. The young man was introduced as Paolo Agostini, only son of il professore—yet the historian had never mentioned a wife or an heir. Two young faces who appeared with him in several photographs about the apartment I had taken to be students. Now, shaking hands, the family likeness was evident. Without his father’s huge bulk, Paolo was equally tall and just as striking, even without the spectacular scar. His smile, on being introduced, was cautious but not unfriendly.

To break down the apparent reserve I made a point of expressing my appreciation of the help his father had given me, but it appeared to make little impression. Although his manners were impeccable he did not seem to have any particular interest in his father’s relationship with me. His English was good, with little trace of an accent, but the vocabulary somewhat limited so that he had to concentrate before speaking; it may also have been the reason for his reserve.

The Marchesa had no such handicap, as familiar with the language as Aldo Agostini. Her voice was pleasantly husky, as though she might be recovering from a bronchial infection. ‘Paolo is one of my students,’ she announced, and I was instantly jealous of the intimate manner in which she laid a possessive hand on his sleeve.

Evidently my poker face was not enough, because Paolo suddenly flushed - not, it seemed, with embarrassment at a public gesture of affection, but with an instinctive awareness of my interest. The penny suddenly dropped. I had been too self-centred to imagine that Isabella Contini could be unfaithful -except with me - but not blind enough to understand the attraction. I was jumping to conclusions again, of course, but it was a hunch on which I was prepared to gamble. The difference in ages may not have been as great as I had first assumed; and if Paolo had a fraction of his father’s charisma, he would turn the heads of most women. When she began to speak I forced myself back to earth with the realisation that she and I were merely ships passing in the night.

‘I suggested the meeting because I felt that our interests could be complementary,’ she was saying.

‘Indeed,’ I echoed. ‘Mind you, although I could use as much help and advice I can get, the exchange might be rather one-sided. I’m not really sure how you would benefit.’

‘It does not follow that I would,’ she conceded, ‘but as a collector I cannot afford to neglect any opportunity, and if there is one thing I am prepared to invest, apart from money, it is Time. Optimistically, you stand to gain from my knowledge and feel for our history, and I from purchasing anything your activity may have brought to the surface.’

‘I don’t want to dash your hopes too quickly, but the items I have bought so far have been very unspectacular—mostly material related to the early days of printing -Aldo Agostini’s hobby horse.’

‘You were fortunate to have someone of his calibre to advise you’ she said.

‘I think he felt sorry for me’ I speculated. ‘The real reason for my visit was to find something connected with the origins of the Romeo and Juliet story, ideally something by da Porto, but there has been nothing, and certainly nothing to substantiate the existence of the lovers, which Aldo dismisses/

‘That is where the dottore and I disagree’ she remarked. ‘We have debated the issue for hours, but we seem to be on different wavelengths.’

I raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘It is a matter of attitudes, rather like the medical profession and alternative medicine. As a professional historian he represents what I regard as the Establishment which, as you know, is very conservative - not to say reactionary. My stand is very different. I believe that Shakespeare’s characters - or, if you prefer, da Porto’s - really lived, not necessarily as the characters we have come to know, but real enough. That means that the bits and pieces I have found over the years have substantiated my belief. Aldo argues that such evidence is meaningless unless one starts from my premise, which he does not accept.’

‘In fairness, Dr Agostini is no reactionary. He admitted he would like to believe, but still has to be convinced.’

‘Of course. I would not have the effrontery to say that he was wrong’ she protested. ‘Nor do I believe that he would go any further than to say that he merely disagrees. There are so many issues over which fair-minded men and women choose to disagree, such as the existence of God.’

I nodded.

‘There are those like Aldo who find it impossible to believe without what they regard as proof. Take spiritualism, where what is regarded as proof by one side is dismissed as fantasy by the other. Are you a romantic, Mr Coll?’

‘Why else would I be in Verona?’

‘Does that mean you believe in the existence of a British King Arthur?’

I nodded. ‘In his existence; not necessarily in the legends, the tales of the Round Table.’

‘You are saying you are able to separate fact from fiction to your satisfaction?’

‘More or less.’

‘Well, that is my position with the Capulets and Montagues. One day, perhaps. I shall write a book about my findings.’

‘For which you will need direct evidence, surely? What about documentation, diaries and the like?’

She smiled. ‘I have documentation referring to them, but as yet nothing by them. I live in hopes!’

‘Someone I met suggested there is a journal in existence.’

‘I am certain there is.’

‘I mean that someone had actually seen it.’ .

‘Who?’

‘It is what the legal profession would call hearsay. I would rather not elaborate.’

Paolo, who had remained silent, now looked ostentatiously at his watch before whispering something in Italian to the Marchesa. Acknowledging the point she rose immediately. ‘We must go. I am showing Paolo some restoration work being carried out on paintings in the basilica of San Fermo Maggiore, and they close in forty minutes.’

‘I understand.’

‘If you would like to come to my house to continue the discussion,’ she suggested, ‘I will show you some family papers you cannot fail to find impressive. You may not be aware that I have traced my family tree back to the 15th century, even before they settled in Verona.’ When I nodded, impressed, she continued, ‘I am free the day after tomorrow. Would that be convenient?’

‘I can keep the day free.’

‘Telephone me on that morning at about nine o’clock, and I shall give you instructions of how to get to my apartment.’

I shook hands with both of them. How much of the conversation Paolo had understood was difficult to judge, but it was apparent he did not approve of something - the developing relationship, perhaps, or more likely of me. His grip was perfunctory, and his smile even more fleeting.

Before turning in that night I was surprised to receive a phone call from Aldo Agostini.

‘If you are not too busy tomorrow morning, I have something to show you,’ he began.

I was intrigued. What could it be? Surely nothing acquired after I left the apartment, which left something in his collection that he had chosen not to show me on two previous visits. ‘A book?’ I speculated.

‘Those men came back,’ he continued, ignoring the question. ‘Despite my apparent diffidence when you suggested we switch to the offensive, I took your advice this time. Unfortunately anger overcame discretion. I tried to creep downstairs, but I was like a bull in a china shop and the man outside spotted me. It was the fellow from the hotel this time, the man with the face marked by chicken-pox, and he got away. The point is that they, whoever they are, must be after something I have, and I am getting worried.’

‘They are not likely to break in while you are there,’ I interjected.

‘I am not so sure. But why would they wait? I am not here all the time so there must have been opportunities.’

‘Who knows?’ I conceded. ‘Perhaps they have already been in but did not find what they were looking for. It must be something very special.’

I was conscious of a heavy sigh. ‘You can see for yourself. You will have to take my word as something of an expert that we are talking about something very special.’

I recalled Vespucci’s allegation. ‘To do with the Capulets and the Montagues?’

‘I am in a vulnerable position,’ he said. ‘I have something which is too valuable to insure.’

‘Too valuable!’

‘In the sense that I could not afford the premiums. Yet, equally, one could say it has no value because it cannot be authenticated, except on my authority.’

‘Isn’t that good enough?’

‘Perhaps, but the strongest argument in support of such a provocative claim is that I have no intention of selling, and therefore will not be drawn on questions of value. Remember, no one is even aware of its existence, so I can have nothing to gain by lying.’

‘If you have been sitting on something of that magnitude for so long, why have you decided to show it to me now?’

‘Because it may no longer remain a secret. From what I have seen of you, Matthew, I suspect you are not only honest, but a lot tougher than any of my friends and acquaintances in the academic world. I need advice about how I might protect this treasure, short of placing it in a bank vault.’

‘Or telling the world of its existence. By making such a declaration you would make it a much greater risk to the potential thief.’

‘I am not ready for that step yet. When you come tomorrow you will realise why I intend to keep it to myself, at least until I have finished my research. But, as I said, come and see for yourself.’

Four

The city’s rich history was so intoxicating I felt cocooned in a time-warp, in which the world of Aldus Manutius and his contemporaries was far more important than material matters, such as selling what I had acquired of their work. But next morning the Canaletto warmth of my complacency was shattered by the bleakness of the real world.

The first inkling that anything was wrong was when I entered the restaurant for breakfast, and the normally ebullient waiters froze in their tracks. They might have been playing statues—stopping in mid-action whatever they happened to be doing, while their eyes swivelled as one in my direction. Then, as I reached my usual table, Rossi appeared from nowhere and sat down beside me, uninvited. The manager was such a stickler for protocol that I was momentarily disconcerted, yet without any explanation he seized my hands and pressed them, his expression compassionate. From the way he gazed into my eyes, the casual onlooker might have imagined they were witnessing a proposal of marriage.

In my confusion I became aware that not only were the waiters staring at me, but a number of the hotel guests were all waiting for a reaction. Something was wrong, but they had the advantage. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

Rossi shook his head as though he could barely bring himself to speak. ‘Signor Coll. My dear Mister Coll,’ he breathed, and I began to suspect that his tight grip was a precaution against an emotional outburst on my part. His manner was so disturbing that I feared Charlie Appleton had sent me a cable with the news that the shop had burned down. Then at a signal, someone handed Rossi a copy of Arena which he folded carefully so that the second lead story on the front page was level with my eyes. A photograph of Aldo Agostini leapt out of the page and below it I caught the word morto—which was enough to explain the expressions all round.

I tried to read the text but my brain rebelled. Admittedly my immediate thoughts were for the mystery journal that Agostini had promised to show me this very morning, but his sudden death was a shock, not only because I had liked and admired il professore, but because he had been so much larger than life. The thought of that abundant vitality, and the power behind the athlete’s body, snuffed out for all time was a sombre one - and widely shared, judging by the size of the headline which took up as much space as the sparse news report.

At my bidding, Rossi read the story aloud and I received a second shock. Death was not from natural causes, Agostini had been battered to death. The body had been discovered by the dead man’s son, Paolo, on his return to the apartment they shared, and a doctor’s examination led police to treat the death as a murder enquiry. An unnamed police spokesman announced that although there was insufficient evidence on which to speculate, the possibility that Doctor Agostini had disturbed a burglar could not be ruled out.

I suspected now that Rossi’s concern for me had more to do with the hotel’s other guests, and surprising though that might seem to anyone who knows me, I was shaken enough to remain at the table long after everyone else had left the restaurant, while the uncharacteristically subdued waiters cleared up around me in almost total silence. I seemed to have total recall, going over and over my conversations with Agostini and recalling every inflection in his enthusiastic discourses on early Italian printing. Then my thoughts turned to Paolo. The shock of finding his father must have been devastating, yet since we barely knew each other it might not have been appropriate to call at the apartment to offer condolences.

Contacting the police was another matter. The fact that Dr Agostini was being followed and his flat was under surveillance was now doubly significant. On the other hand, I suspected the police would get round to me before long. Presumably I had been one of the last to see him alive. I compromised by telling Rossi that I was anxious to assist the investigation in any way I could, asking him to draw my name to the attention of the relevant department.

From the speed in which they responded, he might have dialled 999; a hopeful indication of efficiency in prospect, although what was it I had read about Mussolini making the trains run on time? Indeed, the man who introduced himself as Inspector Barletta of the Questura reminded me of the sort of martinet who would be good at making trains run on time, although what they had to do with efficient detection remained to be seen. Physically undistinguished, Barletta’s Germanic blond, blue-eyed good looks were devoid of expression; he had the statuesque appearance of a Greek god, and looked as cold as marble. A pair of rimless spectacles heightened the effect. I had met his sort before in the English CID, and took an instant dislike to him, which was unreasonable, but his judgement might well have been just as unprofessional. It may have been a clash of personalities, but from the outset I was treated more as a murder suspect than someone who had volunteered information at the earliest opportunity.

Interrogating me at a speed that made no allowance for the fact that I was English and did not necessarily have total command of his language, he was starting his second question while I was still mentally translating and trying to compose an answer to the first. It was impossible for me to cope in Italian but when I asked if Rossi could act as interpreter he reacted as though I was being deliberately difficult, muttering under his breath about the arrogance of the British. My problem was that I knew enough to understand, but not enough to respond as I would have liked. I was about to insist on my rights, trying to find the words that did not make me sound even more pompous than he already believed, when he threw me off balance by apparently forgetting the request and continuing in impeccable English, ‘Where were you yesterday afternoon and evening?’

I complimented him on his grasp of English, treating the concession as an indication that he was beginning to unbend, but he did not take the bait and waited, expressionless, for me to answer. Remembering that it had been my idea to help the murder enquiry, I swallowed hard and gave him an account of my afternoon with Dr Agostini. I mentioned the two men who had shown such interest in him, but studiously refrained from elaborating or speculating until the Inspector declared his interest. After careful consideration I decided to say nothing about the phone call and the mystery journal; in truth there was little I actually knew that would mean anything to him. ‘In the evening I did nothing, apart from going out for a meal, and returning to the hotel for a relatively early night.’

‘And you were alone the whole evening?’

I nodded.

‘So there is no one to confirm your story?’

‘If you mean I don’t have an alibi, that is correct. I wasn’t aware that I needed one. I was a friend of Dr Agostini.’

Apparently unaware of my irritation, Barletta continued, ‘Do you know the name of the restaurant?’

I kept my temper in check. ‘I can take you there. They were quite busy, so I don’t know if they will remember me, but there weren’t too many tourists.’ I detected a glimmer of a smile, which served to antagonise me even further. ‘What is so funny?’

The mask returned but his voice seemed a half-tone more conciliatory. ‘People do not always answer truthfully, Mr Coll. I was more impressed with your answer than if you had contrived to upset a plate of spaghetti down the waiter’s trousers. Let us go back to the beginning. Tell me the circumstances of your meeting with the deceased.’

This time I volunteered more than the bare bones, giving him a comprehensive account of my two meetings and offering to provide the names of the people who had come to the hotel in response to the advertisement. He listened attentively, not interrupting even at my description of the two men who had behaved so suspiciously, yet I could tell from his eyes that he did not miss a word.

‘Grazie,’ he responded when I finished, his manner more respectful. ‘We shall need you to come to the Questura some time today to make a formal statement, and look through our files of known criminals, in case you can recognise one or other of the two men.’

‘My book-buying is almost complete. I had intended returning to England within the next day or so,’ I said. ‘In the circumstances I could stay on for a few more, to see if you have any success with the enquiry.’

‘I must insist you do not leave Verona for the present,’ Barletta replied, officious again. ‘You are, after all, a material witness. As far as we know, you are the last person to see the victim alive.’

‘As far as you know,’ I echoed. ‘An assumption only based on what I have volunteered because I am keen to help. But your enquiries have only just begun; it is quite possible that he had other visitors, apart from the murderer.’

Barletta nodded. ‘Possible, of course. But for the moment you are the only lead we have. If you leave the city without our agreement we may well jump to conclusions.

‘I said I was happy to remain for a few days. But I have a business to run. I can’t stay indefinitely.’

‘I understand,’ Barletta conceded, a fraction less belligerent. ‘I am sure we can resolve the problem.’

I still resented his attitude. ‘In the short time Dr Agostini and I knew each other we became friends; I can assure you I didn’t repay the invaluable assistance he gave me by killing him. For a start, I had no motive, but even if I did lust after his books, wouldn’t I have behaved with a little more discretion? At least given myself an alibi?’

Barletta’s gaze moved off the floor to meet mine. ‘Allow me to be frank with you, Mr Coll. I don’t know what impression you have of the Italian police, but take it from me we try. If we were satisfied with circumstantial evidence I might even now be contemplating your arrest, but we are a little more sophisticated than that.’

‘But you still regard me as a suspect?’

‘According to our information, dottore Agostini had no enemies, so the motive almost certainly was robbery. The display cabinets remain intact so the implication must be that the murderer was known to his victim.’

‘That cuts down the list of suspects to several hundred,’ I interjected. ‘He told me that he had shown the collection—or parts of it—to librarians, collectors and dealers from all over the country and abroad.’

‘But more to the point, how many of those happened to be in Verona this week? And of those who were, actually called—by some remarkable coincidence—at the apartment on the day he was murdered? Whereas, Mr Coll, you have not only travelled hundreds of kilometres to find books such as those in the Agostini collection, but by good fortune happened to be on the very spot within a few hours of the murder.’

The inference was logical, I had to admit. It suddenly occurred to me to ask whether anything had actually been stolen.

‘We don’t know yet,’ Barletta admitted. ‘His son says there is a catalogue of the collection, but as yet he has been unable to find it. Meanwhile he does not believe anything is missing, nor does Signora Paccioni, the woman who comes in every day to clean and prepare their meals. But then neither could be expected to know without a checklist. If it does not turn up soon we might even ask you to take a look.’

‘You would trust me?’ I demanded, faintly amused at his apparent change of heart.

He seemed to straighten his shoulders. ‘If you are guilty, then we lose nothing anyway,’ he explained, his face expressionless. ‘If you are innocent, your special knowledge of old books could be useful to the enquiry.’

‘Then I would be happy to help. I would need to rely on my memory but then most of the more valuable items made an indelible impression. I would know if they are no longer there.’ Hoping we were beginning to develop the basis for a later rapport I asked, ‘Can I ask how Aldo was killed?’

The coldness returned. ‘I am not at liberty to disclose the evidence.’

I laughed. ‘You can’t have it both ways. If I am the murderer then you lose nothing by telling me what I should already know.’

‘Very well. I am prepared to say that he was clubbed to death with a heavy object.’

‘Heavy object?’

‘Which is at present being examined by our forensic people.’

‘”Heavy object” could mean literally anything.’

‘I will not take up any more of your valuable time, Mr Coll,’ he announced, presenting me with a curt nod, half bow, and baring his teeth in a humourless smile. His manner reminded me even more of an SS officer and I wondered inconsequentially whether his father had changed his name for some reason. I had met a number of blue-eyed, blond-haired Italians, but in Barletta’s case the image had more to do with his general manner than just appearance.

When he had gone I brooded on the opportunity missed. Although he was not to know that I was quite familiar with detective work, my knowledge of antiquarian books and manuscripts was, by his own admission, of some value to the investigation. At home I would have ignored an unhelpful policeman and carried out my own investigation, but that was impossible in a country where my knowledge of the language was too rudimentary to go off on my own, and where I did not have a single useful contact, let alone access to the resources of the Questura. I wondered if it was too presumptuous to ask the Marchesa if we might join forces; at least, whether she could spare the time to act as an interpreter. I was on the point of telephoning and rehearsing my opening gambit but at the sound of my own disembodied voice: ‘I intend to find Aldo’s murderer, and would like your help’; I lost my nerve; it sounded ridiculously pompous.

Nevertheless, I was reluctant to let the idea go. If I could tell her something of my background, perhaps the proposition would not sound so far-fetched. Yet, although a more reasonable bet, it was not something that could be discussed over the telephone. I decided to go to her apartment, put her in the picture, and let fate decide. If the Marchesa was out, or if she listened but was not convinced, I would forget the whole idea and leave the case in Barletta’s hands.

It was a hot day but with a pleasant breeze coming off the hills so I decided to walk to the Contini apartment which Rossi told me, with an element of awe, was in a luxuriously modernised mediaeval building in a part of the city where only the most affluent could afford to live, between the Duomo, originally a Roman basilica, and the church of Santa Anastasia, with a history going back to the end of the 13th century. It was mid-afternoon and apart from the usual energetic tourists the streets were relatively deserted. Initially, I was engrossed in thoughts of Agostini, speculating about the interest shown in him by the two men. But as I ran out of ideas I became more aware of my surroundings. Having already ‘done’ the main tourist haunts, the homes of the Montagues and the Capulets, and Juliet’s tomb, I felt at home in the spectacular avenues and piazzas, which meant that I was less aware of individual buildings and more of the atmosphere. It seemed quieter than on previous days and amidst this heightened awareness, a sixth sense warned me that I was being followed. The warning signal in the pit of my stomach started the adrenalin and I felt pleasantly excited. Until this moment I had been an outsider desperately looking for a ticket to the action; now hopefully, it might be coming to me.

I stopped to look in the window of a smart men’s outfitters where the price of a suit, admittedly very elegant, was the equivalent of a month’s net income at my bookshop in Ardley. I switched my gaze to the reflection of a man, a short distance behind, on the opposite side of the road. Like me, he was doing his best to look interested in the contents of his window, and although I could not see what was on display, his manner was too posed, his gaze too fixed, to be convincing. Since he showed no sign of moving on or turning to give me sight of his face, I walked on, continuing to window-shop until I had the opportunity to see if he was still following. This time I caught him out, getting a good look before he was able to turn his head. My first reaction was one of disappointment. I had hoped he might have been one of the men I had seen earlier, but his face was unfamiliar.

A logical alternative was the policeman Barletta had undoubtedly assigned to report on my movements, but somehow this man did not look like a detective—he was too unkempt. That may sound as sweeping as my observation about Barletta not looking Italian, but again it was not just the appearance that influenced me. A policeman trained in surveillance duties would not have reacted like this man when he realised I had spotted him; he would have walked on, calling my bluff, and waited until I was reassured before continuing the tail. I walked on again, wanting to be sure I was not imagining things, and within a few minutes I had confirmed my suspicions.

What to do? In more familiar surroundings my options would have been greater. For a start, I could have lost him, but my knowledge was limited to the areas around the tourist attractions. In any case, although I did not want him to know where I was headed for fear of compromising the Marchesa, I did not wish to lose contact altogether—at least, not before finding out who he was. Anxious to collect my thoughts I stopped at a row of public telephone installations, none of which appeared to be in use. Going to one at the end of the line I proceeded to dial a random number, conscious that my shadow had arrived at the phone at the other end of the line and was following my lead. The difference was that while I had discreetly recovered the dialling tone, he began to speak, turning his back to ensure that he would not be overheard. I assumed he was reporting to someone.

The man, in his early twenties, might have been a student. Wearing a grubby T-shirt with an indecipherable slogan across the front, and faded blue jeans, his personal hygiene obviously left much to be desired; he was unshaven and probably had not combed his hair for days. When it seemed he might be finishing his conversation I put on an act, talking into the mouthpiece, loud enough for him to catch the occasional phrase; it did not matter whether or not he understood English.

I wondered now who would call whose bluff, and when he put the phone down and began to rifle through the pages of a telephone book, I guessed he was merely killing time, waiting for me to continue my journey—but I was wrong. As soon as I put down my receiver, he straightened up, took a deep breath and looked round casually until he caught my eye. Then with a half-smile he strolled off, retracing our previous route. After only a split second’s hesitation I set off in pursuit.

From the start it was difficult to keep tabs on where we were headed. Walking at a brisk pace, he seemed to weave in and out of turnings as though trying to shake me off, although not once did he look round, and eventually I gave up any pretence or effort to conceal myself. In about a quarter of an hour we had reached the river and I followed him over the Navi bridge, which, I remembered from my earlier study of the map, led to the university. My excitement mounted until having reached the other bank he turned sharp left and headed back, on a parallel path to his original route. I was even more confused when we reached the next bridge, the Nuovo, and he crossed again.

It slowly dawned on me that we had completed a circle and, probably, were not far from where we had started. I was confused, torn between the hope that he had merely been trying to shake me off and failed, and a growing apprehension that he was toying with me. But when he began to slow, I sensed that we were nearing his destination, that there had been some purpose in the exercise.

The houses here were very old, some expensively modernised, others run down or even derelict. Eventually he stopped by a cobblestoned alleyway which, presumably, led to an inner courtyard. I also stopped, but to my surprise he turned and gestured me to come forward. I approached, cautiously.

‘Inglese? he demanded.

I nodded, and he gestured with his head in the direction of the alley, making it clear that was where we were to go. I hesitated. I was not scared of one man on his own, but I could be walking into a trap; he could have accomplices waiting inside. As though sensing my apprehension he suddenly smiled and shook his head in which I imagined was supposed to be a sign of reassurance. Common sense told me not to trust him, but having come this far in the hope of getting a lead on Aldo Agostini’s killer I was reluctant to give up and find myself back at square one. I consoled myself with the thought that it was an unnecessarily elaborate plan for the run-of-the-mill mugging of a tourist; nor did I possess any information or evidence that might justify anyone trying to get rid of me personally; and, again, there must have been simpler ways. So I squared my shoulders and followed.

The houses on either side of the narrow road were derelict, windows without glass or boarded-up, offering shelter only for tramps or down-and-outs, although there was no one in sight. Even so, I kept a wary eye on possible hiding-places until after less than thirty paces the alley opened out into the courtyard of what must once have been an imposing mansion, now empty and in a terrible state. But it was light and large enough to override the claustrophobia of the alleyway, and I found my composure returning. Here it would take half a dozen men to surround me, and the thought merely reinforced my earlier feeling that nobody would have gone to all this trouble if they simply wanted to rob me, or get rid of a witness.

As I looked about me, wondering about the courtyard’s history, I noticed that my ‘guide’ had retraced his footsteps and was leaving by the alleyway. As our eyes met, he nodded affably as though his job was done; I was to remain.

I turned to watch him depart, in little doubt that he would not understand English and that my unspoken question would be answered soon enough anyway. One moment my eyes were fixed on the departing figure, and the next, his space was occupied by a tall figure who had stepped from nowhere it seemed, to block the entrance to the courtyard only a few yards where I stood. It was Paolo Agostini; he was wearing a light blue track-suit and white, rubber-soled trainers, as though he had been jogging.

Surprise was jostled to one side by a number of questions—foremost among them, why he had gone to so much trouble to meet me when a phone call would have sufficed? But before I could put the question into words he gestured behind me at the multi-balconied building. ‘If I had the money I would buy this place, and preserve it for the future.’

I followed his gaze reluctantly, objecting to his assumption that I was not entitled to an explanation. But the mediaeval house with its cobblestoned courtyard merited his admiration and I was caught up in his fantasy. ‘It would cost a fortune to restore,’ I said, despite my irritation.

‘More even than the value of my father’s books - if he had left them to me. In any case, he told me many years ago that the collection, apart from a few items, had been bequeathed to the universities here and at Padua.’

‘Oh,’ I said, unsure of how I was supposed to react. ‘I’ve been meaning to say how sorry I was to hear…’

‘I think we have wasted enough time, Mr Coll. To business. The death of my father has to be avenged.’

I waited, uneasily, for him to come to the point.

‘My father’s murderer must answer to me.’ He did not actually accuse me, but it was implicit in his stare.

Instinctive anger was tinged with sympathy for a young man whose mind had been unhinged by grief. ‘If I were your father’s killer, I wouldn’t still be around. I have no idea who murdered him, I swear. He was my friend.’

‘Friend or not, intentional or not - it was still murder. My father said that men would kill for a number of the books in his collection. I don’t know what it was that tempted you, but I do know that you had both motive and opportunity.’

‘I don’t deny that circumstantial evidence makes me a prime suspect. The police have already made that clear, although they know it’s quite another thing to prove it.’

‘I have no interest in the legal system - that is why you are here now. In case you have forgotten, there is a tradition in this country that we fight our own battles, right our own wrongs. My father’s death is a score I must settle, no one else.’

‘That is your business; it has nothing to do with me.’

He gestured to the courtyard. ‘This is why I have such an affinity with the place. More affairs of honour have been settled here than in any other place in Verona. It is said that this is the spot where Mercutio fell - the man who came between the Montagues and Capulets. I am not convinced of that incident specifically, but certainly blood has been spilled here for hundreds of years.’

Realisation began to dawn on me. ‘I don’t believe it! You’re challenging me to a duel?’

I had not noticed the position of the sun, but suddenly it was immediately behind my adversary, causing me to blink and throwing his outline into sharp relief, turning him into a partial silhouette framed in an orange glow, an optical illusion which momentarily disorientated me. What with the distorted image, the mediaeval setting and the unexpected challenge, we might have been back in the sixteenth century, so that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Paolo’s clothes, in shadow, had turned into doublet and hose. But as I moved out of direct line with the sun, the effect was lost.

In the interim Agostini seemed to have undergone a subtle change, as though he were in a trance. ‘Obviously the choice of weapons must be yours.’ Almost mechanically he glanced over his shoulder to indicate, leaning against a wall, what looked like a sports bag that might have contained tennis or squash rackets; I knew instinctively that its contents were far more deadly.

There was still a chance we were talking at cross purposes. ‘Swords or pistols?’ I asked, wide-eyed.

Not appreciating my sense of humour he nodded, still poker-faced, and failing to get a reaction I demanded, ‘You have to be joking.’

‘I thought you knew something about the history of Verona. We never joke about honour.’

‘Pull the other one!’

‘Che diavolo…? I do not understand.’

‘What is there to understand? Duelling went out a couple of centuries ago - certainly in my country. All I know about swords and pistols is what I remember from The Three Musketeers Paolo scowled; a more human reaction at last. ‘Are you a coward or merely a fool?’

‘Sticks and stones…’

‘Cosa…?’

‘Sticks and stones,’ I repeated, ‘can break my bones, but names…it’s the way children trade insults, it seemed appropriate. Let me pass, there’s a good fellow. Coward or fool, I don’t fight with kids - at least, not with deadly weapons. I do know something about the honour you mean. Wasn’t it restricted to gentlemen? If that is so, we’re talking at cross purposes because, unlike you, I have no such pretensions.’

For a split second it seemed he might strike me, but then for some reason the fury abated as he tried to think of an appropriate response.

Gambling that he was not the sort to stab a man in the back, I brushed past him into the alleyway again, leaving Paolo and the sixteenth century behind. There was no attempt to stop me.

Five

I returned to the hotel to find Ettore Vespucci waiting. ‘I was on my way home,’ he declared, ‘but I thought the very least I could do was to stop by to commiserate with you.’

‘About Dr Agostini?’

‘Inspector Barletta,’ he retorted. ‘I have had a number of dealings with that fellow, and his manner leaves much to be desired. I have been tempted more than once to use my influence to have him removed, but fortunately for him he has an excellent track-record—he gets results.’

I shrugged. ‘He is not the only person who is convinced that I was the killer.’

Vespucci had the ability to express concern without the histrionics of others like Rossi, and I suspected he was sincere. ‘Who is that?’ he asked.

‘Paolo Agostini. A half-hour ago he challenged me to a duel!’ I smiled to show I had not taken the matter seriously, but the lawyer was not amused.

‘You must inform the police,’ he advised. ‘This is not the first time young Agostini has been involved in duelling, but there is never any proof. People are frightened to come forward.’

‘Presumably it is against the law.’

He seemed surprised at the question. ‘Of course, but the boy thinks he is above the law.’

‘He did seem a trifle arrogant,’ I confessed.

Vespucci’s smile was cynical. ‘I did not tell you before, but Agostini and I served together with the partisans in the last war, that is how he got that incredible scar. Both of us were dedicated Marxists—remember, that was before we grew up - so I knew him quite well. Later we moved in different circles, but continued to respect each other. Despite his intelligence, Aldo went wrong with the boy’s upbringing. The mother died in childbirth so I imagine he must have been overindulgent. Paolo grew up rebelling against everything in which his father believed. He inherited Aldo’s love of history but twisted and channelled it into the nationalist point of view, respecting military success more than anything else, and worshiping the great Italian nationalist leaders, even Mussolini. It led to his becoming a fascist.’

‘I hadn’t realised.’

‘Oh, I do not doubt the young man’s sincerity - just as, at his age, Aldo and I were committed Marxists—but I am sure that did not make us objectionable. Paolo behaves as though he has only contempt for our society.’

‘He is something of a paradox,’ I speculated. ‘He was in deadly earnest about killing me, yet when I refused to take him seriously he did not know how to react. Surely any other person feeling as strongly would have found any excuse?’

Vespucci smiled. ‘You are not as well versed in Italian history as I imagined. Duelling is an affair of honour between gentlemen. It would be beneath such a person’s dignity to become involved in a brawl. Take my advice and inform Barletta, if you see him again.’

‘I’m sure it will all blow over. I don’t think the boy really stopped to think; he. jumped to conclusions because I was a handy suspect.’

‘Do you have any theories of your own?’ the lawyer asked.

I hesitated, wondering if he could be trusted, but then remembering that it was he who had suggested the existence of a secret journal, I decided to take him into my confidence. ‘You were probably right about Aldo having something exceptional in his collection. He phoned the night he was killed; he was going to show it to me the next day, how is that for irony, keeping it under wraps for so long without any problems, and then being killed before he could come clean? I didn’t tell Inspector Barletta because I don’t know anything more than the mere existence of…something, presumably a journal or diary. It would have been difficult to explain.’

‘So we must assume that the killer made off with it?’

I shrugged. ‘Short of searching the apartment, there is no way of knowing. A further irony is that Inspector Barletta, despite his suspicion, might call on me to see if I can detect if anything is missing. But since I never saw it, we would be no better off.’

He sighed. ‘If Aldo was watched shortly before his death, it seems likely that someone besides us knew about the journal.’

Instantly I regretted my frankness. How did Vespucci know about Dr Agostini being under surveillance? I had said nothing, and I doubted if Barletta had confided in him. He was a man with connections, and may well have had informers within the Questura, but what could his interest be in this case?

I copied his sigh, implying that I was out of my depth. I stood, concluding, ‘It was very considerate of you to call in. I shall let you know if I hear of anything of interest.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘And if you have any more trouble with Paolo, please let me know. I shall take care of it.’

I escorted Vespucci to the hotel entrance where we shook hands alongside the uniformed doorman snapping his fingers imperiously at a car in the shadows. A silver-grey Rolls Royce glided up to the floodlit entrance as I turned to go inside, catching only a fleeting glimpse of the driver. But it was as much as I could do to prevent myself stopping to stare. Vespucci’s chauffeur was the pock-faced gigolo with whom I had collided so forcefully outside the hotel toilet - one of the men who had been keeping a watch on Dr Agostini.

Next morning I awoke frustrated by a suffocating sense of helplessness. It seemed that the only person who was in a position to help me investigate Agostini’s death -and someone in whom I might trust—was not all he seemed to be. Even the prospect of spending the morning with the Marchesa failed to excite me. I telephoned as a matter of courtesy, hoping she would come up with a reason for postponing our meeting but there was no escape; in fact, she had cleared her diary for the day.

‘It is too beautiful to stay indoors,’ she insisted. ‘Please let me take you out of the city. Can you ride, Mr Coll?’

‘Horses?’ I muttered vacuously, still inhibited by my depression. ‘I didn’t bring any gear. I didn’t even bring a swimming-costume.’

She laughed. ‘I don’t know about that, but they can fit you up with riding-boots and a hat at the stables.’

The opportunity of showing off before a beautiful woman offered a glimmer of light in the gloom, even though I suspected she was a good horsewoman with whom I would do well to keep up, but hopefully the physical and mental stimulation would help take my mind off Agostini’s death and its bizarre aftermath.

Isabella Contini was ready and waiting for me when the taxi drew up outside her home. I had expected a servant to open the door so I was unprepared for the strikingly lovely woman, dressed in a long-sleeved yellow silk sports shirt, beige slacks and brown leather riding-boots, and I was embarrassed to find myself staring. Her auburn hair was done up in a practical pony-tail, which made her seem younger and somehow more accessible than the poised aristocrat to whom I had been introduced.

The traffic was heavy as we left the city in her red open-top Ferrari, and as she seemed to be concentrating on the road, I remained silent. It was still an hour before noon, but the sun was already the hottest I had encountered and I was suddenly appreciative of her decision. When I took a deep breath of contentment, she seemed to read my thoughts. ‘I thought of taking you to Lake Garda, there are a number of attractive fishing-villages, but to do them justice one needs a full day and I didn’t know if you could spare the time.’

‘Whatever, I’m sure you know best.’

‘Well, if we had not arranged to meet, I would have gone riding. My husband and I have three horses stabled only a few minutes’ drive south-east of the city, a place known as the Boschetto, alongside the river Adige. The attraction is that we can spend as little or as long as we like, and I can drive you back to the hotel in time for any appointments.’

‘Sounds perfect.’

‘The people there run a riding-school and since my family are good customers I am sure they will be pleased to lend you whatever you need. If not, then at least you can hire the stuff.’

I nodded. ‘I’m looking forward to it. But you were going to tell me about your family tree.’

‘I will, when we stop for lunch.’ She turned her face to smile at me. ‘You must promise to shut me up when you start to get bored. It is difficult for me to stop when I am on my hobbyhorse.’

She looked so radiant I was reluctant to spoil her mood, but felt I could not continue to keep off the issue of Agostini’s murder. ‘You’ve heard the news of Aldo?’

The smile disappeared but the beautiful profile remained composed. ‘I saw the piece in the newspaper and then I spoke with Paolo. It’s terrible. The poor boy is doing his best to maintain what you English call a stiff upper lip, but underneath he is heartbroken. It would be much better if he were not too proud to show his feelings—to break down and let it all come out.’

I was disconcerted by the rational way in which she was analysing young Agostini’s emotions, as though concern for the living took precedence over the dead—which was probably more sensible - yet for no real reason I had assumed she would be as devastated as I had been.

In the circumstances, I hesitated about confiding in her over Paolo’s challenge, deciding to leave it for a while until I had decided if she was capable of judging Paolo’s behaviour dispassionately. Instead, I gave her a potted account of my interview with the Questura, and my frustrated desire to help find Dr Agostini’s killer.

She murmured something in Italian that sounded sympathetic. ‘I don’t know this man Barletta, but I have heard the department is very efficient. If I can help in any way I will - but without doubting your sincerity, or your talents in that direction, I fear you will only antagonise the authorities. More important, the chances of finding out anything Barletta does not already know are very slim.’

The Ferrari moved off the highway on to an unmade, bumpy road leading to the stables, and within minutes I was left in the hands of a groom who helped me sort through a pile of boots. When I rejoined Isabella, she was talking to a couple of teenage girls who had brought the Contini horses. Our mounts were ill matched - one a striking black stallion, barely fourteen hands, with the sleek features of the Arab thoroughbred, who made the massively proportioned chestnut alongside, at least two hands taller, look like a carthorse.

‘What do you think of my favourite?’ He is called Mercury,’ Isabella asked.

I raised my eyebrows appreciatively. ‘The perfect match—even down to his blue tinge and your yellow shirt.’ Living in the country I had come to learn something about horses, but I had never seen such a magnificent thoroughbred, or such a distinct tinge of blue in a black skin which shone like silk over the rippling contours of muscle.

‘It’s the blue which shows the pure Kohl strain,’ she pointed out. ‘But there is no need to feel underprivileged. Your horse, Hercules, belongs to my husband—and he is an excellent judge. Hercules is very much a man’s horse, of course, bred for hunting and steeplechasing and, in his way, as finely tuned as Mercury. I don’t need such a powerful mount, and over shorter distances Mercury goes like the wind.’

‘How old is this fellow?’ I asked, patting the chestnut’s heavy neck. ‘About ten?’

She nodded approvingly. ‘Not bad. He is nine - three times the age of my little beauty.’

Little or not, the ease with which Isabella swung up into the saddle without assistance indicated a natural athleticism I would find hard to match. Suddenly I was glad she had given me the dependable old warhorse. Mercury was so sleek that anyone other than his equally elegant owner would feel obliged to dress up, but my tweed sports jacket and cashmere pullover seemed tailor-made for Hercules’ dour temperament.

Isabella belonged to a privileged class which, not having to work for a living, regarded outdoor pursuits such as horse-riding as part of the normal week; it would not have occurred to her that others did not spend their time in the same way. In fact, I had not been on a horse for six months and needed time to adjust, but she set off at such a gallop that it was as much as I could do at the outset to keep my seat. Fortunately my horse was incapable of catching the flying Arab, so she was oblivious of my discomfiture, and as my confidence gradually returned I was content to watch and admire the sight ahead of rider and horse in perfect accord.

It was several minutes before the black horse began to tire and Hercules drew level. Exultantly, Isabella turned to smile at me. ‘Are you pleased you came?’

I nodded, too breathless to respond.

She laughed at my plight. ‘When you have recovered, we can change horses—to demonstrate the difference between Mercury and mere mortal horses!’

‘He is a bit like a god,’ I agreed, ‘but I feel safer where I am. Besides, I enjoyed watching the pair of you. Forgive me for being personal but I wish you hadn’t braided that wonderful hair of yours. It needs to be free—to be carried by the wind.’

I thought I detected the glimmer of a blush, but her answer was as unpretentious as I would have expected. ‘Not worth the price of having to untangle it later.’

We must have covered between ten and twelve kilometres before reaching an old inn nestling by the river. Whether it was the company, or the setting - we sat outside in partially shaded sunshine—the lunch of cold meats, fruit and wine was more enjoyable than anything I sampled in Verona. And as we talked properly for the first time we found, despite the difference in our backgrounds, a surprising number of shared interests. I was able, without any exaggeration, to make my Queen Anne home compare favourably with hers of much the same period. There the comparisons ended, of course, because I had the one house, whereas she also had a holiday cottage on the shores of Lake Garda, and an apartment in Milan.

Isabella’s husband spent most weekdays at the Milan headquarters of his multinational operation; indeed, because of his overseas interests he seemed to see very little of Verona. Conversely, Isabella would join him in Milan infrequently, when he needed to entertain for business reasons, but when she was not in Verona she preferred to spend time in more culturally interesting cities such as Venice, Florence and Rome. From the amiable way in which she referred to the Marchese, I had no doubt they were friends, but that they shared a marriage of convenience. Their fourteen-year-old daughter Bianca was at a boarding school for ‘privileged’ young ladies in Venice, which meant that Isabella was left on her own for much of the time.

Encouraged by her frankness, I asked about her friendship with Paolo Agostini. She hesitated only momentarily. ‘I love Paolo. His manners are impeccable, and he wants to learn. I am vain enough to enjoy passing on to an appreciative audience knowledge of the things I understand, such as painting.’

She had ducked the question I intended, and discretion suggested that the matter be left there. But Paolo intrigued me. I wondered if the rebellion against his father had extended to hatred, and even murder. ‘We bumped into each other yesterday,’ I remarked, ‘I had imagined he would be devastated with grief, but he appeared concerned only with revenge.’

Isabella frowned. ‘Paolo is a throwback to another age, which is one of the reasons I like him so much. He is so unconventional, with the highest standards of morality. To some extent he hero-worships me, yet when Bianca comes home at the end of term I can ask him to take her to pop concerts and the sort of places to which teenagers like to go, in the certain knowledge that he will not patronise her, and equally that he will not take advantage of her.’

‘How does that make him a throwback to the past?’ I prompted.

’I was going on to say that his values are very different from the young man of today. Talk of revenge must be put into the context of our history which is littered with stories of blood-feuds, of which Romeo and Juliet is just one. These feuds resulted in the deaths of so many men, fathers, as well as sons because the only way families could bear those losses was to channel grief into hatred of the enemy. It was a vicious circle, of course, but it was blind hatred that maintained the continuing bloodbath, and grief that fuelled that hatred. And talking about the past, let me tell you about my family.’

Her enthusiasm was infectious, and as a rapport developed between us, ancestors long since turned to dust seemed to come alive as her story unfolded. Over the generations names had changed, but there were now hundreds of descendants of the founder of the dynasty, Frederico Gonzago, dotted about the country in their own small units. She provided only the briefest outline of the past couple of centuries to concentrate on the brother and sister who arrived in Florence from Marseilles in the year 1512. Frederico, son of a prosperous French wine merchant, had accompanied his seventeen-year-old sister Marguerite for her wedding to an elderly nobleman at the Florentine court, fell in love with the city and stayed to start the Italian branch of the family tree. But it was the childless Marguerite who occupied Isabella’s dreams.

‘I have always been fascinated by the past, so I made a point of tracking down my existing relatives and questioning the older ones and those who shared my interests. All roads led to Marguerite who was far more interesting than her brother; gradually I built up a picture of a woman who was quite remarkable in her time. The more I discovered from old family letters and documents, the more she began to haunt me. I am convinced that she kept a journal, and I won’t rest until I find it.’

‘What was so special about the lady?’

‘I am sure she would have disliked the term “feminist”—at least in the context of its meaning in recent years—but for a woman of the early sixteenth century she was exceptionally independent. The Gonzago women have always talked of her with a touch of awe and envy, because her life-style caused quite a scandal throughout Northern Italy - not because she was particularly immoral but because her attitude towards public regard was that of the men who did not need to worry about their reputations.

‘It probably began with sex because she suffered an arranged marriage to a man old enough to be her father, and who died when she was just beginning to expect fulfilment as a woman. That left her relatively free to take a succession of lovers and when it became clear she could not conceive a child, even greater freedom. Because of her intelligence and education -she could speak three or four languages - she attracted the most powerful men of the day, most of whom remained her friends.’

‘I can understand your interest. Sounds as though you have inherited many of her qualities.’

She thanked me with no trace of self-consciousness. ‘I regard that as a compliment,’ she added, ‘but it is much easier these days for a woman to be independent. There is also a big difference in our personalities. I am still inhibited even in today’s open society. Marguerite had real audacity. One of the stories about her concerns an audience with the Pope when her husband was still alive, so you might say she was born to be outrageous. Apparently the Holy Father left the room to attend to some business, and Marguerite sat in his seat and stunned the assembled guests with a more than passable impersonation. It was said to be such a humorous performance that even the Holy Father smiled when he was told—many months later, of course.’

‘The Popes in those days were not always as holy as the Church would have us believe,’ I said, but I agree it would have taken a strong personality to do what she did. ‘Didn’t you say there was a Verona connection?’

‘Marguerite had friends—mostly men—in several of the important cities of the day, and it seems she befriended the Capulets, with Lady Capulet becoming one of her few close women friends. This, of course, is why I am so desperate to find some record of her experiences. Apart from my personal interest, imagine what light it could throw on other people of the time. You know the play, of course?’ When I nodded, she continued, ‘Has it occurred to you that there was a significant change in the behaviour of Juliet’s parents? At first they were warm and intelligent—even enlightened for that period - and then, for no apparent reason, they seemed to turn on the girl. You could even argue that it was their unreasonable behaviour and coldness which pushed Juliet to suicide.’

I shook my head. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘That there may have been a reason. They had problems of their own.’

‘Such as?’

She frowned. ‘That is the…what does one say? The sixty-four-dollar question. I have my own theories but we shall never know the true answer unless we find Marguerite’s journal.’

‘If it exists.’

‘If it exists,’ she echoed.

I was suddenly conscious that the sun had cooled, and that splashes of dirty grey began to smudge the immaculate stretch of blue sky. As the temperature dropped sharply, I replaced the jacket I had cursed earlier; for once the British idiosyncrasy of being prepared for all weathers had paid off. Again she seemed to read my thoughts and suggested that we head back to the stables. Relaxed by the wine we were not inclined to hurry, and set off at a gentle trot, when unaccountably—since we had earlier raced at breakneck speed without mishap—Isabella’s horse began to limp. We dismounted to look for signs of injury, but there was little to see - no swelling or obvious wound on the leg, or even to the spongy underside of the hoof. Yet when I took the reins and tried to lead the horse so that Isabella could watch his action, he was obviously lame and we were forced to conclude that he had stepped in a rabbit hole or on a small rock.

‘Do we head for the stables?’ I asked, ‘or is there a vet or farrier nearer?’

Clearly upset by Mercury’s injury, she shrugged. ‘I don’t want him to use that leg any more than necessary. If I stay do you think you could find your way back to the stables and ask them to come out with a horsebox?’

‘Of course, or I’m happy to stay while you go.’

There was an ominous clap of thunder, and the sky darkened dramatically. Even as we looked up it began to rain, only a few drops but large globules. We were completely unprotected, but several hundred metres in the distance was the edge of a forest in which we could shelter.

Seeing that she still hesitated I instructed her to get up on Hercules and make for the trees while I followed her on foot, leading Mercury; at a jogging speed he should not suffer too much discomfort.

She shook her head. ‘We are in for a tropical downpour. You will get soaked. Hercules can take both of us. Mercury will follow as best he can.’

I helped her up on to the big chestnut and hauled myself up behind her, leaving her the reins while I held on to her waist. Her prediction was correct; the raindrops were now huge and penetrating and even before moving off we were getting wet. Concerned for her own injured mount she refused to race the chestnut flat out, but he seemed to bound along like a brown Pegasus, his strides swallowing up the distance to the trees.

The combination of speed and the rain lashing into our faces made it difficult to breathe. I was conscious of Isabella’s heart pounding. Her waist seemed ridiculously tiny—almost small enough for me to crush between my hands—and only a few centimetres above I was uncomfortably aware of still softer flesh. I took in huge gulps of air in an effort to calm myself.

Behind, Mercury was making encouraging progress, and when I told Isabella she spurred our mount to even greater speed. We charged into the teeth of the wind and rain, the excitement of the race against the elements catching at us both, and we began to giggle - at first fitfully, and then defiantly, almost hysterical as the heavy globules of water attacked our eyes, our nostrils and our open mouths. By the time we had reached cover, everything had been forgotten in our preoccupation with laughter, coughing and spluttering.

Feeling dashingly gallant I leapt from the horse and held out my arms to help Isabella down. Flushed and still smiling she extended her arms, but then our eyes met and suddenly the mild hysteria seemed to evaporate with the steam rising from our wet clothes. For a few seconds we seemed suspended in time and I knew that as she came into my arms we would kiss. But then a snort of pain from the approaching Mercury broke the spell and she was concerned again for his welfare. I helped her down so that she could go to the horse, and as my thoughts cleared, I shivered involuntarily from the cold of the shade.

It occurred to me then that if I, wearing a pullover and jacket over a shirt, was getting cold, then Isabella would soon be in a worse state. Although a riding-hat had protected her scalp, her shirt was soaked, almost black with water, and she had no change of clothing. When she turned back to the horse she was already beginning to shiver.

The foliage above was so dense that the ground about us remained dry. I took off my wet jacket, and shook off much of the surface moisture. Then I instructed her to remove the soaked shirt which could be exchanged for my pullover which was still dry. Politely I turned my back, but when I faced her again she had not moved. ‘Come on,’ I insisted, holding out the pullover. ‘This is hardly the time for modesty.’

Isabella took the jumper as though she intended to put it on over the wet shirt, and I reacted angrily. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’ll turn the other way if it is that important!’ Even though I carried out my promise I was conscious of her footsteps as she retreated behind a tree to change, leaving me stunned by such prudishness. Her shirt had become almost transparent and I could see she was wearing a bra, so why was she so concerned? I settled for a mental shrug; much as I liked the Marchesa, false modesty was an irritating trait, but I reminded myself that she was someone else’s wife and, probably, someone else’s mistress.

Six

The day spent with Isabella Contini succeeded in thrusting to one side my obsession with Dr Agostini’s murder, but on arriving back at the hotel, my thoughts immediately returned to Vespucci’s chauffeur. ‘Pockface’ was involved in some way, and while I could not automatically assume that he had been carrying out the lawyer’s orders, it had to be more than a coincidence.

In view of Vespucci’s impressive reputation, he would need to be handled with extreme caution, but his chaffeur was surely a safer option - although, from what I had already seen of him, even that could present problems. I had no authority, and if he refused to answer questions, I had to be prepared to take the law into my own hands, to ‘lean’ on him. He looked as though he could take care of himself.

Restricted by the sparse information I had, I took a calculated guess and went to Vespucci’s office address in the Mazzini. Finding a café almost opposite, with a good view of the premises, I sat down to read, and re-read my two-days-old English newspapers. I was on my fifth cappuccino, conscious of the proprietor’s growing restiveness at my continued occupation of a prime window position as lunchtime approached, when ‘Pockface’ emerged.

For a moment I thought he was crossing over to the café in which I was encamped, but having reached my side of the pavement, he turned and continued on foot down the street. To the evident relief of the proprietor I got up and followed. Now, committed to a course of action I began to have second thoughts. What would I do if he remained on the Mazzini? The street was far too busy for any form of confrontation. And even if I managed to trap him in a side road, how would I cope if he did not understand English? I wondered if I might get away with getting behind him and conning him into believing that two stiffened fingers in my pocket up against his back was, in fact, a gun.

I had no way of knowing whether ‘Pockface’ was a chauffeur who also did odd jobs, or a ‘heavy’ who doubled as a chauffeur, but I soon realised that either way he was no mere servant. He moved like an athlete, and the constant but natural movement of his head indicated a degree of alertness that goes with a vested interest in knowing what was going on all around. It was only a matter of time before he glanced back and spotted me, and when he did it was obvious from his double-take that he recognised me. Although his pace did not slacken I sensed he was puzzling over the next move. No longer needing to conceal my presence and anxious that he did not get away I lengthened my stride to narrow the gap, but as though he could read my mind, he did the same.

Until now there had been no real evidence that he was at all concerned, but on turning a corner he broke into a gentle trot, incentive enough for me to try to match his speed as much as possible without attracting too much attention. But a couple of corners later I was beginning to lose him and when eventually he was out of sight I panicked a little and started to run.

So preoccupied was I with not losing him that I had thrown caution to the winds. Eventually I rounded a blind corner to run full tilt into a stiff-arm punch which caught me on the side of the jaw, sending me sprawling. As anyone who has ever walked into a lamp-post will know, the unexpectedness of the impact seems to double the force of the blow, and as the fist connecting with my jaw had a momentum of its own, it is not difficult to understand how my 185 pounds came to end up spreadeagled in the gutter.

Fearing a follow-up boot against my tenderer regions, I struggled instinctively to my feet but, surprisingly, ‘Pockface’ was inching backwards, widening the distance between us. With my head throbbing painfully, it was difficult to ascertain whether I was in a concussed state and imagining what I saw, but he seemed to be in a state of panic, pointing from me to what looked like a wallet on the ground, and shouting at the top of his voice. ’Al Ladro, Al Ladro\l\,’ which I took to mean something like, ‘Stop, thief!’

I stood weakly, trying to arrest the uncoordinated movement in my knees, becoming aware of a crowd gathering, and it dawned on me that they were regarding me as the aggressor. For a split second I hesitated between attempting to run, and scowling fiercely to bolster the image they appeared to have of me as a dangerous mugger, but then some young tyro appeared from nowhere and was diving at my ankles. As I tried not to overbalance I was conscious of ‘Pockface’ rushing in with a fusillade of blows. I swayed inside most of them and butted him on the nose. Meanwhile, encouraged by my obvious vulnerability, a growing number of men rushed to join the bandwagon of would-be heroes and I was surrounded. In the ensuing melee the great majority of punches and kicks thrown from all directions missed their target, frequently landing on the wrong people, but nonetheless I sustained more punishment from this motley bunch of law-abiding citizens than I had ever had at the hands of professional thugs.

Fortunately, the battle had attracted a couple of policemen who managed to restore some semblance of order, and then arrested me on the overwhelming evidence of a dozen witnesses who swore they had seen me attack ‘Pockface’ and steal his wallet. In the atmosphere of hysteria it would have been futile to try to put my side of the story in broken Italian, so I remained silent until we were at the police station where I asked to see Inspector Barletta of the Questura.

I did not know whether to be irritated or relieved to see a smile at the lips of the normally sour-faced detective, but since I could not afford to antagonise him any further, I pretended not to notice. ‘They’ve given you a report on what is supposed to have happened?’ I asked in place of a greeting.

He nodded, the uncharacteristic grin out of place in an habitually sour face.

‘And what is it you find so funny?’ I asked.

The smile vanished, replaced by an expression of studied neutrality. When he remained silent I cut in anxiously, ‘Don’t tell me you believe that cock-and-bull story?’

‘Of course not,’ he said, at last, the certainty in his tone strangely reassuring. ‘An English football hooligan is one thing, but reputedly respectable booksellers do not go around stealing wallets. Books perhaps, not wallets.’

‘The man who made these allegations - do you know who he is?’

Barletta nodded. ‘It seems he had second thoughts when he was asked if he wished to press charges, and by the time I arrived he had changed his story. Seems it was all a misunderstanding.’

‘Thanks for telling me,’ I retorted, the sarcasm undisguised.

He shrugged. ‘It is no good blaming us. The uniformed officers had no reason to doubt his story, supported as it was by a dozen witnesses. They did not know you, or him. Obviously you are free to go, once you have given me your side of the story.’

There seemed little”point in concealing the truth, so I gave him a full account up until the moment of my arrest. ‘It was quite smart of him,’ I conceded. ‘It must have seemed like a way of getting rid of me without any involvement on his part; he couldn’t have expected the police to arrive so quickly.’

Barletta nodded. ‘That was the last thing he wanted.’

‘Why do you say that? Who is he, apart from being in the employment of Mr Vespucci?’

Barletta frowned. ‘I should not be discussing this with you, but since in other circumstances he might have been charged with wasting police time and you are the innocent party - relatively speaking - I shall be frank. His name is Guiliano Matteo and, as you know, he works for Vespucci in some unspecified capacity. We have nothing on him and he has no criminal record, but we have a file full of unsavoury but unproven allegations. Let me put it this way: he is not the sort of man I would wish my daughter to meet.’

‘You said that involvement with the police was the last thing he wanted. If he has a clean record, why would he want to give you such a wide berth?’

‘He would not wish to incur his employer’s, displeasure.’

‘And what do you know about Mr Vespucci?’

‘Nothing I am prepared to discuss. Mr Vespucci is a dignitary of the utmost respectability. More to the point, he has some very influential friends at the highest level. One does not lightly bandy allegations with that gentleman.’

I nodded. ‘But he professes to be a friend, to be sympathetic to my aspirations. How do you think he would react if I appeared to take him into my confidence about the brush with Matteo?’

Barletta shrugged. ‘Officially I am obliged to warn you not to meddle in police matters—take that as read. But, man to man, I would be even more specific. Men like Vespucci do not arrive in positions of power without having protected their interests at every level. He has friends everywhere, even in this building. It would be irresponsible for anyone to imagine they can pull the wool over that man’s eyes. Leave it to us. We may appear to move at a snail’s pace, but we usually get there in the end.’

The inspector had meant well, but if I ducked the issue now I might as well give up and go back to England. I was convinced that Vespucci was implicated in some way, if not directly, in the death of Aldo Agostini. The only motive, even for unpremeditated murder, could have been the mystery journal he coveted - albeit for the city—and since that was almost certainly missing, the logical place to look for it would be at the lawyer’s home or office.

In the circumstances, the moral implications of burglary did not worry me; nor did the technicalities—I had served my apprenticeship in housebreaking and simple safe-breaking in my days in military intelligence. The target was another matter, although as soon as I began to examine the options I realised that there was only one course open. Even a professional burglar would not contemplate breaking in and finding his way round an office building he had not reconnoitred - so it would have to be the house where I had at least been shown the reception rooms on the ground floor.

I hired a car for a few days on the pretext of exploring the shores of Lake Garda, and aware of the possibility that my movements might be monitored, I actually set off on the first leg of the tour. Having stayed overnight in Cisano and confident that I had not been followed I did some practical shopping—buying several metres of thick cord in place of rope, in case there was any climbing to be done, and a strong pocket-knife which might be needed to cut any alarm wires or to prise slivers of wood and putty from window frames. Then, having spent the day pleasantly as a tourist I waited until dark and drove back to Verona, making the necessary detour to the Vespucci villa, arriving just after midnight.

I parked the car a quarter of a mile away, out of sight, and changed into more suitable clothing, rubber-soled jogging boots and a black track-suit. The only ‘tools of the trade’ with me were the pocket knife clipped to the cord wrapped around my waist, and leather driving-gloves to protect my hands, as well as to avoid leaving fingerprints.

The electronically controlled front gate was shut, but scaling the six-foot wall presented no problem, and avoiding the main gravel drive I moved through the trees towards the house, now in darkness. Staying in the shadows and keeping to the grass I skirted the building looking for a means of access that was not directly overlooked from inside. At the back, near the swimming-pool, the french windows leading to the main reception room beckoned invitingly, but I suspected they were locked and I could not afford to waste time trying to force them when at any moment the activity might disturb the occupants of the house.

The windows on either side were of the conventional sash variety, and at least two were slightly open at the top. It seemed reasonable to suppose they were not locked. Protected by bodyguards and, almost certainly burglar alarms, Vespucci might have good reason for complacency, and if he was as powerful as I had reason to believe, he would have little to fear from run-of-the-mill housebreakers. I tiptoed across the gravel and examined the nearest window. As I had anticipated, two plastic-covered wires ran in tandem across the sill—one, presumably, a telephone line, the other connected to an alarm. Playing safe, I cut them both before attempting to ease up the lower window. In fact, half expecting it to be locked or stuck I exerted a considerable amount of pressure and my heart skipped a beat when it shot up so that I had to grab at the wood at the base to prevent the window crashing into the top of the frame. It seemed my guess had been correct -Vespucci was obviously confident that no burglar would have the temerity to try his luck here.

I found myself in the kitchen where two swing doors, I remembered, led to the dining-room, and a third into the main hall. I had already decided where to concentrate my search. Of the rooms I had seen, the most likely and most practical hiding-place would be a wall safe, concealed behind a painting in the main drawing-room, or in Vespucci’s study. In fact, the drawing-room or lounge, large enough for a ballroom, was a daunting prospect; there were at least two dozen large paintings and several smaller ones behind which one might find a safe, but there was no means of knowing whether the simple action of moving any of the frames might set off an alarm.

For that reason, the study seemed less of a risk, and so confident was I of having come to the right place I was somewhat prematurely flexing my fingers in prospect of getting at the safe. But in the semi-darkness brushing against the bookshelves I had a flash of inspiration. Although familiar with the techniques of cracking most simple combinations - it was largely a question of trial and error which, if feasible, could take hours—it occurred to me that Vespucci did not need to lock it away. Where better to hide a book than a library where it would surely be a question of not seeing the wood for the trees.

I remembered being impressed by the collection on my last, official visit, but had forgotten quite how large it was; my guestimate now being some 2000 volumes. I drew the curtains and switched on the desk lamp. To make matters worse they were almost all antiquarian, with not a dust jacket in sight to add a dash of colour. Row upon row of leather-bound tomes seemed to defy me to spot the newcomer, the odd one out. Although there was a variety of shapes and sizes they seemed to be of a uniform age and colour so that by allowing the photo image to blur a little at the edges they turned into a brown amorphous mass. Even restoring the focus and concentrating, it was a problem for me because few of the titles were recognisable; those that were not in Italian were in Latin, unfamiliar enough to prevent me from scanning the spines at my normal speed.

Refusing to panic, I covered shelf after shelf in alphabetical order systematically, resisting the temptation to stop to look at more interesting titles, until eventually under ‘C’ I struck gold. There, facing me—proudly it seemed—was the book for which I had been looking. From the impact it made, the faded gilt Italian lettering might have been in flashing neon lights: The Story of the Capulets!

With the butterflies in my stomach fluttering about out of control, I took it down and opened the scratched and darkened calf binding to read the title page, dated 1524, and the words still etched indelibly in my memory, ‘…written by Lord Capulet’.

The front hinge had split, and a few of the yellowed pages had been torn with the loss of some text, but for its age it was in good order. I could not read the text, but as I turned over the pages I recalled the phone call from Aldo Agostini and there was little doubt in my mind that this was the journal that Vespucci’s men had stolen from my friend.

Having found the treasure I wondered what to do with it. The only person I could trust was Barletta, but in removing it from the library I would be destroying the evidence—Vespucci would simply deny he had ever set eyes on it, and my principal concern was to link him with Dr Agostini’s death.

I was standing there, daydreaming, as though I had all the time in the world, when the light was switched on, and framed in the doorway was Vespucci, preceded on either side by ‘Pockface’, whom I now knew as Guiliano Matteo, and the man I had seen gazing up at Aldo’s apartment. Vespucci, a silk dressing-gown over his pyjamas, looked as elegant and unruffled as ever, but his bodyguards seemed on edge as though irritated at being caught out. Partially dressed in trousers and shoes and armed with revolvers they advanced on me with such menace that for a split second I feared they might shoot me in cold blood. I was particularly aware of Matteo whose mottled face was flushed -1 thought with embarrassment, as though he accepted the consequences of having failed to get rid of me when he had the opportunity.

A quiet word of command from the lawyer stopped them in their tracks, and he came into the room to stand in front of me. An onlooker might have imagined the expression on his face to be tinged with sadness as he shook his head in the manner of a father who had been let down by an irresponsible dependant. ‘Is this the way you repay a person’s hospitality?’ he asked.

The act was so convincing I had to resist the temptation to defend my action. Instead, I held up the journal and echoed, ‘Is this the way you repay a wartime friendship?’

He appeared to take me seriously, studying my face for a few moments before coming to a decision. ‘It is more comfortable in the drawing-room,’ he announced. Standing aside to allow me out of the room, he addressed his two companions in rapid Italian. Although I could not catch the words, I guessed from their surprise that he wanted to speak to me alone and, ostensibly to reassure them, he added—more likely for my benefit - ‘Our guest is a civilised person. I’m sure I have nothing to fear if you wait just outside.’

Matteo led the way into the drawing-room. At the other end he unlocked the french windows, and went outside on to the terrace, closing them behind him. Standing with his back to the pool he was able, although out of earshot, to watch what was going on inside. I’m sure that if I gave any hint of aggression towards his boss, he would unhesitatingly have fired through the glass. His companion closed the other exit and presumably stood on guard on the other side, the hall.

Waving me to an armchair, Vespucci opened his cocktail cabinet and produced a bottle of brandy and a couple of balloon glasses. Without waiting for my reaction he poured me a generous measure and another for himself before sitting down opposite me. He raised his glass in a silent toast and flashed a broad smile as though it were a social meeting. ‘I would say this was not the first time you have made…what might be called a “forcible entry”,’ he speculated. ‘We did not hear you get in. You cut the alarm?’

I nodded. ‘Obviously you have a second line of defence. Was it the study floor?’

He smiled contentedly but did not reply. Instead he asked why I had resorted to burglary. ‘You came for the journal, I know, but what gave you the idea it was here?’

I told him how I had recognised Matteo, and our subsequent brush with the law. ‘It was enough to persuade me he had something to hide, and that he was involved in Aldo’s death. After what the dottore told me on the phone I didn’t have to be a mathematician to put two and two together.’

‘But it was I who told you about the journal! I knew months ago so why would I wait until now to steal it, if that is what you believe? I admit Matteo and Graziani were acting on my instructions by watching his movements, but they were not there when he died, and I give you my word I do not have the journal.’

My reaction was mixed; on the one hand a mental snigger that he imagined I would accept the word of a crook, yet, on the other, why should he lie so blatantly when he had just seen me with the journal in my hands? He seemed to read my thoughts, and smiled again. ‘Oh, that? Make me a reasonable offer and it is yours. It is quite appealing, for a fake, and as such I suppose it has some intrinsic value, but it not the sort of treasure for which men might kill.’

‘But Aldo said…’

‘And his word is good enough for me. But he was not referring to this, my dear Matthew; the journal in his possession was written 400 years ago; this is not more than a couple of years old.’

‘You bought it, knowing what it was?’

‘From a man who specialises in these little novelties, although you and I might prefer to call them works of art. This one was produced by a couple of very fine local artists, one a printer and the other a binder. I believe the text is the work of all three.’

I sensed he was telling the truth. ‘But why would these men offer it to you, especially if there was no pretence?’

He seemed to regard my persistent questions as an irritation. ‘I was going to explain. You said before you did not need to be a mathematician to add two and two, but you still got it wrong, and you were going to make the same mistake again. They did not offer it to me initially. After all the time and expertise they had expended, they had much higher aspirations. I seem to remember their first choice was the Vatican library. They might have succeeded had not the Vatican’s special consultant happened to be Aldo Agostini. It is good—but not good enough to fool him.’

‘He turned it down without laboratory tests?’

‘Apparently, he admitted being impressed, but there were a number of small technical mistakes; I’ve forgotten now what they were, but it hardly matters. In the circumstances, they dared not approach other potential customers on their list, so when I heard about the journal I took it off their hands for a fair price. I admire talent.’

‘And they admitted everything?’

Vespucci smiled again. ‘I insisted on the truth. If you knew me better, you would not ask such a question.’

‘I still don’t understand why you bothered to buy a fake - even allowing for your declared appreciation of talent. It couldn’t have been cheap.’

‘Is it not true that certain fakes - paintings as well as books—attain a certain value of their own?’ he asked, and before I could answer he continued, ‘I bought it because I have always suspected that Aldo had the genuine article, and I intended to get it back - for the city.’

‘But how would this have helped?’

‘I knew he had it, but the problem was where. If I had discovered the hiding-place we would have taken it, and substituted this in exchange. Having denied the existence of any documentation on the Capulets and Montagues, Aldo would have been hoist with his own petard.’

‘You admit you would have stolen it?’

‘Since I represent the city in this respect, I prefer to say I would have ‘claimed’ it - which is not the same thing.’

I smiled at his sense of values. I had not changed my opinion that Vespucci was a crook, but was it possible he had a conscience? Besides, his ‘confession’ raised another issue - if Matteo and Graziani had intended to switch journals, why would they have returned with the fake?

Vespucci’s next words strengthened that suspicion. ‘Instead of wasting your energies and skills working against me, I wish you would think of the city and help us find the missing journal. As an honest man you will be concerned with the moral issues, but I shall see that Verona shows its appreciation in some tangible way.’

I shrugged. ‘I would like to find Aldo’s killer. If in the process I can trace the book, I agree that the city has the prior claim to it.’

He smiled with relief, as though his faith in human nature had been justified.

I got up to leave. I was exhausted and needed my bed. As I put my hand on the door handle of the french windows, something occurred to me. ‘By the way, who is the man who sold you that Capulet journal?’ I enquired.

‘His name is Gino Rinaldi; I believe you have already met him.’

Outside, I came face to face with Matteo. I am not a vindictive person but tiredness had sandpapered my nerve edges, and his supercilious smile irritated me beyond measure. He was complacent enough to have put his gun away and I objected to being taken for granted. As though acting on its own initiative, the heel of my left hand flashed out, catching him high on the chest. He staggered back and overbalanced into the swimming-pool.

As I walked back to my car, I was conscious of the splashing. I had assumed Matteo could swim, but he seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to climb out of the pool.

Seven

Vespucci was far too smooth to be trusted, yet I sensed he was telling the truth when denying his involvement in Dr Agostini’s death. His appeal for my assistance could have been a double bluff, of course, and I had no doubt he was a consummate liar, but logic insisted that a person in his position had no need to put on such an act; even less to admit his relationship with Gino Rinaldi, who was almost certainly known to the police.

In the absence of a better idea, I decided that Rinaldi was worth investigating, even though the link with Dr Agostini was tenuous. I had Rinaldi tagged as a confidence trickster; murder, even theft, was a different ball game - yet I had nothing to lose by finding out more about him.

His note of caution at the sound of my voice was probably second nature, but as soon as I mentioned Vespucci he relaxed, and when I went on to explain my interest in an ‘original’ journal in the style of the one I had been privileged to examine at the lawyer’s home, the instinctive salesman in him reasserted itself. It was only when I expressed the desire to meet his colleagues that the caution returned and he became more businesslike, promising to drop what he was doing and call round at the hotel for an exploratory discussion.

My sketchy plan depended on exploiting Rinaldi’s greed, based on the theory that the better the salesman, the more gullible he is when on the receiving end of a proposition; the more enthusiasm he generated for my proposal, the more likely he was to drop his guard when I got round to questioning him about Aldo Agostini. At our first meeting I had been preoccupied with scoring over him, paying what was for me uncharacteristically scant attention to the man’s manner and personality, but face to face again, listening to his infectious enthusiasm I soon realised that he was no more than a likeable rogue whose dishonesty probably never extended beyond the sale of dubious ‘souvenirs’ and mementos of the past; I found it difficult to associate him with major theft, and certainly not murder.

And this impression was confirmed when, of his own volition, he commiserated with me over Agostini’s death, with a string of compliments uttered with such genuine feeling that I knew instinctively that there was nothing on his conscience. ‘On the day we met,’ he confessed, ‘my heart sank when I saw the professore, but I need not have worried - as usual he behaved like a gentleman. The Capulet journal which Mr Vespucci bought for a mere trifle was supposed to make our fortunes—but we had the misfortune to offer it first to a rich library which had retained Dr Agostini as a consultant. I swear he was the only man in Italy who would have guessed but he admitted that he was impressed; in fact, he offered to take it off our hands.’

‘But…’

‘We got a better offer from Mr Vespucci.’

‘Even though he knew it was a fake?’

‘Of course. We had to tell him; it doesn’t pay to be clever with the Godfather…’

‘Godfather?’

Rinaldi’s laugh was sheepish. ‘A figure of speech.’

‘Did he say why he wanted it?’

He laughed. ‘You have seen the book - is it not a work of art? His reaction was no different from that of Dr Agostini, or perhaps yourself, except to him money is no problem.’

‘If we do business,’ I warned, stringing him along, ‘it must be on the understanding that I get a trade price. You must cut your margins accordingly.’

He pulled a face. ‘If it was left to me I am sure we could come to some arrangement, but it is my colleagues who do the work, and as you must realise, something of that standard could take weeks, even months, to produce.’

Once I suspected Rinaldi was unlikely to throw any light on Agostini’s death there was really no need to continue the charade, but I was intrigued by the forgery of antiquarian books, particularly where there was such a high degree of skill involved, and I decided it would be interesting to meet such talented craftsmen. ‘Your friends will have to prove to my satisfaction they know what they are doing,’ I warned. ‘When can we meet?’

Totally convinced, he used the phone in my room to make contact. Although he spoke in rapid Italian I got the gist and was not surprised when he announced that we could go straight to the workshop of a friend just off via Montacchi, which I recalled was very near to the monument that passed for Juliet’s tomb.

Sylvio Ventura was a middle-aged, rotund and balding man of a bland expression which could have been innocence or solemnity, and who glided towards us on silent sandalled feet with the demeanour of a monk. He thrust out a diffident hand but regarded me owlishly, saying nothing so that for a moment I wondered if he had taken a vow of silence.

The half-dozen books produced by the team to date had been forgeries of 15th dr 16th-century classics or scientific works, and as I was to discover, it was Ventura, a bookbinder and conservator, who provided the real insight, even advising the third partner, a printer, on typefaces and inks. Knowing very little about books, Rinaldi’s own contribution, apart from selling, was merely in faking the text of the Capulet journal, utilising an imagination which outstripped that of his friends, assisted by his encyclopaedic knowledge of Veronese history.

In an effort to disarm, to persuade Ventura that we had something in common, I decided to give him a potted history of my own encounter with forgery—the journal of the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. When Rinaldi began to translate, I realised that Ventura knew no English, and although our interpreter stumbled and gave up on the technical terms, I managed with the help of some sign language to convey my meaning. The story served its purpose, although it was the layman, Rinaldi, who enthused at my account of the skills entailed while, in contrast, Ventura remained solemn as a church mouse. Yet I noticed that he missed nothing; questioning his partner on detail where the meaning was not immediately clear.

‘The attraction to me of the Lanier journal was that I could read and understand what the writer was trying to convey,’ I explained. ‘It was handwritten too, which seems to add to its authenticity. Although I was impressed with your work, I did wonder later how such a private journal came to be printed. Lord Capulet must have been a very rich egotist if he wanted to leave his personal notes for posterity. We will need to produce something for which there is a reason for the printed form.’

Rinaldi nodded approvingly as he translated and Ventura seemed to accept the implication; at least he began to address me directly, and in explaining his philosophy he began to open out at last, showing me two large filing-cabinets full of old paper carefully sectioned in date order. ‘Of course, it is possible to make paper by hand, and age it,’ he explained through Rinaldi, ‘but as a conservator working on very old books it is essential to save all the old paper I can find—usually the end papers from books that have fallen to pieces, and are not worth preserving. So when we are being…’ Rinaldi paused to find the right word in English before grinning happily, ‘…being creative, it also eliminates any problem of age. Although we could produce paper with all the constituent parts associated with the period concerned, and it is even easier to fake watermarks, it is unnecessary trouble when it would almost certainly fail laboratory tests. Similarly, it is much simpler to use metal type which, if it is not the original font, can be identically matched - with far less risk of getting the ink wrong than by writing with a pen - quite apart from the skill involved.’

I conceded the point. ‘The person who forged the Lanier journal had to get into the skin of the Dark Lady, and as such it not only made fascinating reading, but even a handwriting expert did not question the fact it was not written by a woman. In fact, he went to enormous lengths to make it technically feasible - even to the use of gum sandarac…’ I noticed that Rinaldi shrugged hopelessly, and although Ventura seemed to guess what it was, I added, ‘put on the page to stop the ink from bleeding where the glazing did not cover the page properly. I remember how thrilled we were when some grains of the stuff—ostensibly 400 years old -were found in the crevasses of the pages where it had apparently rolled into the bound edges.’

Ventura nodded appreciatively.

Suddenly I was conscious of all that craftsmanship going to waste, and I had ah idea which I began to develop, thinking aloud. ‘Unless a book is so sensational that it demands the closest examination, the chances of detecting the forgery are not high because we want to believe, and the existence of the genuine article is always feasible. Scholars are still finding hitherto unknown poems by Shakespeare. But it is still a risk, and it occurs to me that there is no need for your skills to be employed dishonestly. Why don’t you produce something which can be sold openly—as a reproduction?’

They stared at me blankly; crooks who had obviously never contemplated legitimate means of making money.

I persisted. ‘As I said, there is a fair chance no one would ever know, but why take even the slightest risk? In England in the late nineteenth century there was a literary scholar who wasn’t satisfied with the respectability and income his reputation earned, and decided to reproduce first editions of most of the fashionable authors of the age. His name was Thomas Wise, and although a pair of literary detectives eventually unmasked him a couple of years before his death in the 1930s, he was never charged with any offence. The point I’m making is that those fake first editions are worth far more today than the originals.’

The light was beginning to dawn, slowly. ‘I’m talking about a different type of book, but the principle is that Wise made the forgery respectable. If you can create a work on the Romeo and Juliet theme I can sell it for what it is—a forgery. There would be no need to reveal your identity, but either way there would be no suggestion of deception if the customer could produce a receipt that clearly stated what the book was.’

Rinaldi began to explain in excited Italian, and Ventura’s solemnity began to waver, turning first into a half-smile and then a grin which he quickly stifled and I realised that he was embarrassed by the fact that his false teeth did not fit properly. It was replaced by an expression of deep concentration. He must have been making some rapid calculations because when he responded it was to point out that their investment in time and money would be considerable. Their cost price would be in the region of $5000. What percentage could be added to attain a profit that justified the effort?

I conceded that no one would spend more than a few hundred dollars on a copy, but even as I was speaking I realised the flaw in my suggestion. I had been thinking of the handwritten Lanier journal; printing meant no restriction on the number of copies run off. ‘When I used the word “reproduction” I should have said “facsimile”. Forget about fabricating anything! Work on the pre-Shakespeare versions of Romeo and Juliet— even if it means paying a small commission to the library which owns the best copy of the original da Porto and Bandello—which might even be Aldo Agostini’s estate.’

I had to keep my enthusiasm in check to allow Rinaldi to keep up, but it was apparent that I had Ventura’s full attention. ‘The drawback to modern facsimiles,’ I continued, ’is that while the printed word is the same, they are produced on modern paper and flashy bindings. You have the skills to use contemporary materials, which you already possess. Admittedly the paper is in short supply but I’m talking about a run limited to say fifty copies—a hundred at most—to justify the high price.’

This time it was Ventura who was excited, while Rinaldi appeared a little apprehensive over the unaccustomed legality of such an operation. He gave a worried shrug in passing on Ventura’s question about the likely sales price.

‘I’ve seen very unimpressive facsimiles sold for $750,’ I pointed out. ‘There is no reason why you should not double that figure—especially if you can get the respectability of an institutional body behind you.’

As they did their sums even Rinaldi was convinced and I began to feel pleased with myself; I could now leave them to their own devices with a clear conscience.

Rinaldi’s enthusiasm returned and he was impatient for the answers to a dozen questions about the potential selling operation. We left Ventura to his work and strolled in the direction of my hotel, Rinaldi punctuating our discussion of the facsimile market with reference to the city’s history as we passed various places overlooked by most tourist guides. Taking advantage of the improving weather, we stopped for lunch at a pavement café, and when I mentioned that I had not yet had the opportunity to visit the city library, Rinaldi offered to introduce me to the librarian and, more important, the man in charge of the antiquarian section. I had ceased to be surprised by the man’s interests and contacts, and wondered again how he had turned to a life of crime, suspecting that not even a successful venture in facsimiles would divert him for long from the mysterious attraction of the confidence-trick. Perhaps I would get round to asking before I left Verona.

Our route after lunch took us along the Corso Porta Nuova to the Piazza Bra where a plaque on the stone gateway declared, in English as well as Italian, ‘There is no world without Verona walls but Purgatory, torture, Hell itself.’ Ahead, the Piazza offered a cluster of glittering attractions, highlights of which was the Arena, the first-century AD Roman amphitheatre, one of the best preserved in Italy. I had already strolled around the outside of the magnificent building, not much smaller than an Olympic sports stadium, but Rinaldi was able to provide a detailed history of the building, over and above what my guide book had stated.

Right on top of us, for example, was an impressive building which I had regarded as relatively insignificant by comparison with the dominating Arena and, almost opposite, the resplendent neo-classic Barbieri Palace. It was the Gran Guardia, used these days for exhibitions and political meetings, which was built in 1610, pre-dating the more extravagant palace, now the municipal building, by over two hundred years. There seemed to be terraced steps everywhere at this end of the Piazza, so that, without traffic and the use of a little imagination, we might have been back in ancient Rome.

As we stood near the entrance to the gardens, taking in the panoramic sweep of fine buildings, even more spectacular in the afternoon sun, a familiar voice broke the spell. I turned to see Paolo Agostini. He behaved as though he had been expecting me although there was no welcome in his face.

‘Touching to find a foreigner so interested in our city,’ he remarked, his tone so supercilious I was conscious of Rinaldi’s indrawn breath.

‘You may find it hard to believe,’ I assured him, ‘but this is Dr Agostini’s son Paolo. Unfortunately, his normal unpleasantness is accentuated by a conviction that I killed his father.’

Rinaldi was shocked, giving vent to his feelings with one of the few Italian swear words that I knew.

Paolo ignored him. ‘We have some unfinished business, Mr Coll.’

I groaned. ‘Not that again! Anyway, isn’t this a bit public for a duel?’ At my side, Rinaldi repeated the swear word, but I let it go at that; it was too complicated to explain.

Young Agostini snorted impatiently. ‘Such indignation! These protestations of innocence are not helped by your strange friendship with the mafiosa.’

For a moment I wondered who he meant, but when he went on to mention the dinner party I had almost forgotten, I realised he was referring to Vespucci, guessing that one of the younger guests was a friend. He went on for so long about society’s moral decay, I thought he had forgotten his business with me, but Rinaldi nudged my arm and motioned with his head at half a dozen motor cyclists and a couple on scooters who had apparently appeared from nowhere to form a semi-circle behind us.

Our reaction was enough to bring Paolo back to his reason for the confrontation, and he addressed Rinaldi in Italian; too fast for me to catch everything, although the gist was obviously to clear off and mind his own business. To his credit, Rinaldi stood his ground, but I could see he was nervous and urged him to go. ‘They won’t attack me in a public place,’ I pointed out. ‘If I don’t ring you tonight, call Inspector Barletta of the Questura.’

Reluctantly, and looking from me to the bikers, whose numbers had grown to complete the circle round us—I guessed they were Paolo’s friends from the University—he nodded to acknowledge my instruction and retreated. I watched him, feeling betrayed, despite the fact I had urged him to go.

More than a little unnerved by their numbers, I turned to Paolo, aping his snare and demanding, ‘What’s this, a rally of the local fascist party?’

Young Agostini did not share my sense of humour. ‘What is your business with Vespucci?’ he asked.

‘E pigliala! I swore, adding more moderately, ‘Mind your own business.’

He controlled his temper admirably. ‘It is, if it was his people who killed my father.’

‘They didn’t, as it happens - but if you demobilise your private army…’ When he looked at me blankly, I gestured towards the bikers. ‘If you tell them to go, I’m prepared to talk about it - at least, tell you as much as I can.’

He shook his head; my acquaintanceship with Vespucci had obviously confirmed his suspicion that I was equally dishonest. Passersby were beginning to notice the unusual formation of our assembly, and I suspected that my only means of escape was to attract the attention of a passing policeman. But while there were bound to be a number of uniformed men in the vicinity, the chances of one appearing on cue were remote.

It was a risk I was not prepared to take so I shrugged with apparent indecision, ambled back a couple of paces towards the biker immediately behind me, and turned to smile at him. Relaxed, shoulders slumped with his hands in his lap, he returned the smile cockily. I half turned away and then swung a left hook at his head, too high for a knockout, but the impact was enough to throw him off balance. Even as he swayed sideways, I unseated him, grabbed the handlebars and was in the saddle before he hit the ground.

Kicking the machine into life I was conscious only of the startled expressions of the nearest ‘guards’ as I roared off between them heading in a clockwise direction around the Piazza. It was years since I had been on a motor bike, and although the basic technique is never lost, I feared it would be only a matter of time before I came off. Everything was happening in fast motion, like a film projected at the wrong speed, although my thought processes seemed to be functioning—sluggishly - in reverse ratio to the bike’s speed, but I was consoled by the knowledge that I had only to hang on until I spotted a policeman, at which stage my pursuers would surely back off.

My introspection was interrupted by a crescendo of sound from a bike that was obviously gaining on me, and as I turned my head for a split second to confirm the impression, I over-reacted, swerving to my left, and finding myself heading straight for the banked steps of the Gran Guardia, stretching, it seemed in my new fantasy world, up to the sky. Resisting the temptation to brake, I heaved desperately on the handlebars, and momentum carried my wheels half-way up the steps. So intent was I on keeping my seat that there was a total absence of fear, and handling the now bucking machine seemed like a clinical exercise.

Realising that I had not yet been caught by more experienced riders helped my confidence and I was able to prevent the machine from stalling and set off again on the level—forgetting that straying off the edge of my step by only a couple of inches would be enough to turn me over. I was feeling so reckless that I even accelerated before the end of the terrace, taking off and flying over the descending steps, remaining airborne, to land with a thump on the pavement below. On the road again, the pursuit was joined by the other riders, although by throwing all caution to the winds, cutting across a stream of taxis amid a blaze of horns, I was able to maintain the distance between us.

Now I was on the Liston, one of the city’s most fashionable promenades, and a pedestrian precinct where the thoroughfare was even more congested by café tables with overlapping giant sunshades, which meant that I had to duck to go through. I tried to keep to the stretch beyond the tables, but it was a nightmare. Even though I slowed, people seemed to leap out at me from all directions, women screaming and men hurling abuse. I dared not swerve too sharply for fear of not being able to control the machine, and run into someone else. How I got through when at least one of the riders behind swerved and came off, and another collided deafeningly with a table, I can never explain; it was as though my bike had turned into a horse, with a will and instinct of its own, knowing intuitively what to do in the absence of proper control from its rider.

Several times I was tempted to get off and rely on my legs but suddenly I was conscious of the Arena ahead, a straight run of not far short of a hundred metres and I had no choice. By increasing the bike’s power to the maximum, I managed to maintain the distance between me and my pursuers, but then my hopes were dampened by the sight ahead of a cluster of three motor cycles heading towards me, having anticipated my direction and about to cut me off. There was no way, with my limited prowess, to get past them, and I knew I would not be able to get up and walk away from a crash at high speed.

Anxiously I slowed, looking to my right for an opening to the amphitheatre, but at this time of the year the entrances were closed. However, the third or fourth was open and had a ramp leading in - presumably something was being taken inside in advance of the forthcoming opera season—so I took a chance, and drove in, blindly. Only four arches of the outer ring remain, but inside the whole of the third ring on two tiers—and between the rings huge corridors rather like a longer version of London’s Albert Hall, without a roof. At regular intervals steps led down to the auditorium, and an accomplished cyclist might have been able to take evasive action all day but as soon as I saw what seemed to be a clear thoroughfare down, I drove down at speed and up the other side. I looked back to see half a dozen bikes traversing the auditorium in different directions like ants, and suddenly I was at street level. On my right I saw the imposing steps of the municipal building and shirking yet another bumpy ride I turned the other way into the Leoncino. There were still two or three riders in pursuit so I turned right into a narrow residential street with cars parked on either side. At the next corner I turned instinctively left into what was a carbon copy of the previous street. At the end I recognised the unusual shape of San Fermo Maggiore where I realised that by stealth I might be able to evade my hunters.

With the church just ahead I turned to see if I had shaken them off. There were still two of them a hundred or so yards behind, too far to present any threat. It was almost over. I relaxed for the first time and, typically, the front wheel of my motor cycle brushed the edge of a parked car. I wobbled for several seconds before coming off with a clatter that turned heads from all directions.

As people rushed towards me, I felt exhilarated. On the underside of the bike, my trouser leg had a small tear through which my knee appeared to be slightly grazed, but apart from that I was all right, the adrenaline still riding high anaesthetising the aches and bruises I would undoubtedly feel later. As the first person arrived to assist me I got up, smiled effusively and bowed politely before hurrying off towards the church. My pursuers were now less than fifty metres away.

In common with so many Italian cities, Verona has an abundance of historic churches, and I had dutifully done the rounds but San Fermo, unprepossessing in comparison with some, was a favourite; it seemed to have been built for the right reasons, as a down-to-earth place of worship, rather than yet another ostentatious tribute to God. My romantic imagination was captured by its association with the saints Fermo and Rocco, being built on the site of their murder, symbolising the eternal struggle between Good and Evil.

Work started only a few hundred years after the death of Christ, and an inscription dated AD 1065 represents the start made on the ‘modern’ church by the Benedictine monks whose abbey was nearby. Not wishing to disturb the remains of the saints, they merely rebuilt the existing structure, and a completely new church on top, practically identical. In due course the Franciscans took over and improved the upper church, transforming it, to its detriment, in my opinion, into a place of grandeur.

The lower church, neglected over the centuries, had been closed during my previous visit, a disappointment, although one could not complain about the spectacle above. Hurrying up one of the outside staircases, my initial impression was of the light from a huge window throwing everything, stone and marble statues, the altars and the dozens of frescoes, into sharp relief; and of a sense of spaciousness accentuated by the vast ship’s keel roof spanning a single nave, descending in a series of elegant volutes to meet the side walls. Above the entrance portal the vivid colours of the Crucifixion masterpiece by Altichiero seemed to glow with life, bathed in the clear light streaming in.

Now, the same light shining on to paintings and frescoes seemed to infuse them with a circuit of energy. Cynic though I am, it was as though I could actually see a transformation, and then I had the strange sensation of being recharged by an unearthly power for Good; as though I no longer had anything to fear; that I was omnipotent in the face of Evil.

At the entrance three of Paolo’s bikers had arrived, their eyes searching for me. I waited, calmly. There was nowhere to hide, apart from the pews, which would have been offensive to the worshippers sparsely spread among them. In any case, I doubted they would attack me here, so we had achieved a stalemate - unless I was prepared to take the initiative and confront them.

Within seconds they had found me and as our eyes met I studied them carefully; all in their early twenties, roughly the same build as me and ostensibly fit, they would not have had my training in the martial arts, and I sensed that assisted by an element of surprise I could handle them without too much effort. From where I was standing I could see a door to the church below with the sign that indicated it was still closed to the public. Acting on impulse I went over and surreptitiously tried the door. It opened. No one appeared to have noticed, but when I looked back to the entrance it was obvious they realised what I was up to - although at this stage even I was not sure what I intended—whether it was to try to find an unlocked ground-level exit, or merely to lure Paolo’s friends into a trap.

The stone steps led down to a forbiddingly cold atmosphere, depressingly grey after the brilliance of the church above. Although deserted, it was distinctly eerie, as though there might have been someone or something lurking in the shadows. The area was divided into three naves by stone pilasters and columns, the centre nave further divided by six massive columns to support the upper building. It was too cold and dank to relax, the tombs making it seem more like a place of death than of worship, but I was determined to wait here for the bikers; someone springing out on them from behind any one of a dozen hiding places would be as unnerving as a ghost.

But, to my surprise, no one followed me down and I began to wonder if they had not simply locked the door, leaving me trapped. Cautiously, I abandoned my hiding-place to try any door I could find, but they were all locked, and after ten minutes I decided to retrace my footsteps, to get back before even the upper church was closed for the night. The door was still unlocked, and I emerged into the brightness, blinking painfully, but the entrance was now clear. As my eyes adjusted, I looked round more carefully, but there was no sight of Paolo’s friends. Either they had given up, which seemed uncharacteristic after their diligence in the chase, or they were waiting out in the open which seemed equally unlikely.

They had gone. And outside I discovered the reason. The pockfaced Matteo was leaning against Vespucci’s Rolls Royce. Nearby were four tough-looking characters in earnest conversation. As I emerged, Matteo greeted me with a sardonic wave, followed by another gesture indicating that I was free to leave. My ‘protectors’ turned to stare as I passed; they were a frightening bunch, no wonder Paolo’s amateurs had disappeared. I can’t say that I was not relieved but, hailing a taxi, I wondered how long it would be before their very basic methods of persuasion were directed at me.

Eight

I returned to the hotel tired and frustrated at chasing around, or being chased, in circles. I was getting nowhere, and now that the excitement had been replaced by a emotional vacuum I ached all over, mainly from the bruises sustained in the crash, although there was also a price to be paid for my ‘prowess’ on the motor bike. Preoccupied at the time, I had not realised how much effort had gone into even staying on; now the muscles above each knee were so strained from gripping the machine that my legs felt like jelly; even my knuckles ached.

However, after a hot bath I felt better, recovering sufficiently to think about going out for a meal and, an even more attractive proposition, spending a few hours in congenial company. Only three days had elapsed since I had seen the Marchesa, but it seemed ages. I looked at my watch; it was not too late to telephone, and while it was unlikely she would be available at such short notice, I was keen just to hear her voice and, hopefully, arrange a date to meet.

My luck was out. The phone was answered by a woman servant, and when I attempted to introduce myself, she gabbled something in Italian and before I could understand the message and respond, I was listening to the dialling tone. I thought I had caught the word indisposta which meant ‘indisposed’, and it dawned on me that Isabella’s soaking must have resulted in her catching cold, or even influenza. I toyed with the idea of ringing back but doubted whether my conversational Italian was up to it. Speaking to the woman, face to face, when I could use gestures and my hands to assist, was one thing, but the phone was a daunting prospect. In the morning I would send some flowers and try again in a day or so. The prospect reminded me, with sinking heart, that we were no nearer finding Aldo’s killer, and I could not stay indefinitely. Indeed, if the Questura offered no objection I would leave immediately after the funeral.

But next morning before I could go and find a florist Inspector Barletta called. There was little Barletta could do about his unfortunate manner, but after our initial encounter he had seemed to make an effort to be as pleasant as was possible by his standards. This time he seemed almost human and I endeavoured to give him the benefit of the doubt; it may have had something to do with the fact that he obviously hated organised crime and men like Vespucci, and recognised in me a person who might prove a useful ally in some way.

His visit was the outcome of a series of wild reports of a motor cycle chase the previous day, in which a ‘man in a suit’, who could have been a tourist, had driven recklessly through pedestrian precincts closely followed by a hooligan element. The description had a familiar ring, he had thought, prompting him to wonder what I was about to do next to get myself arrested.

I gave him a full account of the chase, and the outcome, while he made a few notes. At the end he said, ‘We may need to corroborate your story. The man with you, frightened off, you say, by Agostini. Do you have his name?’

I hesitated. To identify Rinaldi, almost certainly known to the authorities as a confidence trickster, might not show me in too favourable light. Besides, as much as I liked Rinaldi, it was just possible that he had led me into the trap. I shook my head. ‘Just a guy I met.’

‘Why would Vespucci’s thugs take an interest in your welfare?’ he speculated.

‘Vespucci thinks Dr Agostini had a 16th-century journal which was taken by the killer. He claims he wants to get it back, for the city.’

‘For the city?’ Barletta echoed.

I shrugged. ‘That’s what he said. Whatever the facts, he believes I might be able to find this journal so it suits his purpose to keep me out of harm’s way, for the moment.’

His smile was sour. ‘When did you last see Paolo Agostini?’

‘When I borrowed his friend’s motor bike. After that I assumed he Was one of my pursuers, although it all happened so quickly I wouldn’t have recognised anyone. He certainly wasn’t one of the three who followed me as far as San Fermo.’

‘What was the time when you left?’

‘About five o’clock.’

‘And you came straight back here?’

‘Don’t you imagine I’d had enough excitement for one day?’

‘Once again you have no alibi,’ he said, ‘but, for what it is worth, I believe you. At eight o’clock Paolo was admitted to hospital with stab wounds to the shoulder and upper arm.’

I was stunned. ‘Is he all right?’

Barletta’s shrug was indifferent. ‘He was detained overnight for observation, but they were only flesh wounds.’

‘What happened?’

The detective scowled. ‘That is what we would like to know. The arrogant young swine has lost his tongue, according to the uniformed people. There was a telephone call, an anonymous tip-off, that two men were fighting a duel, but a few minutes later there was a second call from a member of the public who actually gave his name, but that was to report a scuffle, a melee. Fortunately we had a car there within minutes, or I suspect he would not have been so fortunate.’

‘You mean, it wasn’t a duel?’

‘These things happen more than you would imagine,’ Barletta replied. ‘But the fools who play these games generally have a strange code of ethics, they call it honour, and it entails an element of ceremony. For example, they seldom fight without seconds, yet Agostini was alone in a pool of blood when we found him. I would say that he was attacked and that he was unarmed at the time. Who would you say had good reason not to like that young man?’

‘Apart from me?’

Barletta acknowledged my attempt at humour with a cold smile. ‘According to our second call, the genuine one, there was more than one assailant,’ he pointed out.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know the circle he mixes in, but I wouldn’t have thought you needed to look a million miles away from a certain lawyer we both happen to know.’

Barletta grinned again, no less coldly. ’1 intend to interview that young fool before he leaves hospital, but I predict he will look at me blankly and swear he has never heard the name Vespucci.’

I had no sympathy for Paolo; only a sense of relief that his father had been spared the outcome of his wild behaviour. It seemed unlikely that they had been close, but Aldo had been a warm person who must have been depressed by the growing rift in their relationship. To everyone else Paolo was a pain, everyone, that is, except Isabella Contini who apparently recognised some redeeming qualities. If Paolo was still in hospital, the chances were that she did not know of the incident. It might not have been any of my business but, much as I disliked the young man and was jealous of her affection for him, the decent thing to do was to tell her.

When I telephoned, the same female voice responded with almost the same message: ‘La Signora Marchesa non puo’essere disturbata, non sta bene’— and although I was quicker off the mark, the net result was the same and I found myself listening to the dialling tone. I am not the sort of person to stand on dignity but I was annoyed not only by the woman’s rudeness but her assumption that there was no need even to take a message; she did not know me, and our business might have been important. In any case, a bout of flu should not have left Isabella prostrate. Even if she was not up to socialising, there was no reason for her to be kept incommunicado, unless she had given instructions saying she did not want to see me, and nothing had happened between us to justify that.

Fifteen minutes later a taxi deposited me outside the door to her apartment, but it took so long for someone to answer my ring that I began to wonder if it had not been a wasted journey. I knew someone was at home, besides Isabella, but if they were determined not to admit anyone there was nothing I could do. But, eventually, I heard a bolt being drawn and the door opened a few inches. The woman who peered out suspiciously must have been in her seventies, and from the severe black woollen dress and the absence of make-up, I guessed she was a servant. It was difficult to judge whether she had difficulty in seeing me, or preferred to avoid my eyes, but before I could announce myself she launched into the same message with all the animation of a telephone answering machine.

In the taxi, with the aid of my phrase book, I had already rehearsed a permutation of relevant questions, but when I demanded to know a little more about her employer’s state of health she did not seem to hear, or want to hear, and attempted to close the door. I saw red and stopped it with a hand. It needed only the slightest pressure to force the door open and for me to step inside. Offering no resistance or even complaint, the old woman waited, like an automaton, for my next move.

Inside, a massive hall led to a wide corridor with rooms on either side, covering a much bigger area than seemed feasible from outside, and I realised how deceptive the modest frontage had been; the accommodation extended some forty metres to the back. In one of the most fashionable parts of the city, the apartment could only belong to someone in the highest income bracket, and at another time I would have been interested in the décor and furnishings, but now the place was in semi-darkness, doors closed and velvet blinds drawn across the windows I could see, as though the occupants were away indefinitely. Indeed, I had the feeling that by opening a door to one of the rooms I would find the furniture draped in white sheets.

‘Where is the Marchesa?’ I demanded, trying not to frighten the old woman but with enough authority to indicate that I was tired of being messed about. It was impossible to tell whether she understood or was merely reacting to my tone, but she lowered her eyes and moved off along the corridor, on the assumption I would follow. My apprehension had been mounting by the second. I had expected to find Isabella slightly under the weather, perhaps in a dressing-gown, enduring a blocked-up nose or even a mild temperature. From the silence, and the semi-darkness I might have been conducted to a patient terminally ill.

At the end of the passage, the old woman opened a door on our left and, avoiding my eyes, stood on one side to let me in. The huge bedroom was elegantly furnished, with the centrepiece an impressive antique four-poster bed, in which a woman lay, apparently asleep. It was not until my eyes had adjusted to the gloom that I recognised Isabella, and I knew intuitively that this was not influenza.

I moved to the bed on the balls of my feet, irrationally scared of awaking her, but wanting to see for myself the reason for the apparent quarantine—for that was my immediate impression. Her face was suffused in a thin film of perspiration, the hairline damp, and there were dark circles under her eyes, indicating that she had a temperature. Her skin looked a pasty white but it was difficult to be sure in the gloom, and I hesitated to draw the curtains in case they had been closed on specific instructions from the doctor; there are diseases, like measles, in which light can be injurious to the eyes.

With sinking heart I suspected her condition was more serious than measles, but infuriatingly there was no sign of medicines on the bedside table which was bare, apart from Isabella’s wristwatch and a small jar of capsules. The prescription was indecipherable but I unscrewed the cap and took one out; I couldn’t be sure but it seemed no more than some variety of pheno-barbitone. Instantly, my mind raced off in another direction, worried that she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills, but another look at her face was reassuring, her breathing was neither too shallow or too drugged. I forced myself to stop speculating; I was wasting time when almost certainly she needed to be transferred to a hospital.

I returned to the old woman who still cowered in the open doorway, wringing her hands. ‘What is wrong with her?’ I demanded. ‘What did the doctor say?’ Again she avoided my eyes, and I grabbed her by a bony elbow and shook her, as though it was the only way to penetrate her stupor. Then with a surprising burst of strength she broke free of my grip and hurried to the bed where she knelt and rained a shower of kisses on one of Isabella’s hands. I moved to her side and saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. What did she know that she could not tell? I squeezed her shoulder very gently and assisted her to her feet.

‘You must tell me,’ I urged.

For the first time she looked up at me, and realising my compassion was genuine, the iron resolve suddenly cracked and she burst into tears. I held her in my arms, awkwardly patting her bowed shoulders, at loss for some more constructive course. But then came the torrent of words, distorted not only by her sniffles but by the proximity of her mouth to my jacket. If I only caught one word in five, it was enough to make me realise that there had been no doctor; that Isabella had forbidden her to call anyone, not even the Marchese in Milan. I was stunned.

It was possible that Isabella was suffering from some recurring illness, such as malaria, and knew from experience how to treat herself. Then the old woman supplied the answer. Lifting one of the limp hands to her lips again, she gestured with her eyes to the bare flesh, and at the top of the forearm I saw the mass of old needle scars. The realisation came as a shock, yet crazily I had a mental picture of our soaking in the woods when she had refused to strip off her wet shirt. At the time I had been baffled by what had seemed like a display of misplaced modesty, but now it was apparent that there had been something to hide.

As concerned as I was by her terrible condition, it was some relief at least to know that I was not now stumbling about in the dark; the immediate problem was to devise some practical course of action. Her deep sleep puzzled me. A massive drugs overdose was not responsible for the ravages etched on her face, while the loss of weight indicated that the period of illness had lasted for days. I asked the old woman—she told me her name was Maria—if she could explain.

Maria pointed to the pills I had examined and attempted to explain, and when it was apparent that I could not understand she mimed her mistress’s apparently restful sleep after severe stomach cramps and violent spells of shivering, typical symptoms of drugs withdrawal. Again, alarming, but a step in the right direction if it gave us a clearer picture of her predicament. I was worried about the number of barbiturates she would have needed to take to find escape in sleep from such particularly harrowing symptoms, and although Maria did not know for certain, she thought the bottle had been full. We concluded that whatever the dosage, it would have been too high by normal standards. If it was the only refuge she could find, the chances were that next time she would have finished the bottle, and with it her life.

It was unfortunate that I did not know what stage of withdrawal she had reached, but she could not be allowed to remain in this state of limbo. Something had to be done, even if it meant insisting on an input from Isabella. I got Maria to show me the bathroom where I ransacked the medicine cabinet in the hope of finding some substitute drug, a less addictive analgesic, and settled for a couple of bottles of cough syrup. Then we returned to the kitchen where I instructed Maria to make a pot of strong coffee. Into a mug of steaming coffee I heaped spoonfuls of sugar until it was almost as thick as treacle.

In the bedroom I lifted Isabella into a sitting position, propped up by pillows, amused by Maria’s main concern, to cover the young woman’s breasts with a sheet, when the smell from beneath the covers indicated that at some stage she had been unable to control her bowels. Yet, far from being revolted, I experienced a wave of tenderness for this beautiful young woman who had been through a nightmarish experience and who had chosen to endure it alone.

I tapped her face gently and called her name, telling Maria to run a bath while I concentrated on waking her. Slowly she stirred and I forced some coffee into her slack mouth. Eventually the foul tasting liquid registered in an exaggerated expression of distaste, after which she closed her mouth. Urging her to drink I explained what had happened, and although she was not fully awake and her eyes remained closed, she seemed to understand.

When Maria returned, Isabella was beginning to come round, groaning loudly at some discomfort she was beginning to experience again. Between us we draped her in a bath towel and I carried her in my arms—she must have lost ten or twelve pounds in three or four days—into the bathroom. It was not until she was immersed to her neck in the quite hot water that she opened her eyes at last. She looked at me blankly for several seconds before recovering her senses and then, startled, sat up with a huge splash, arms across her chest to cover her breasts, although it was obvious from their position that it was the scars on her arms she was more anxious to conceal.

She looked from me to Maria, reprimanding her in their own language, but I interrupted. ‘I forced my way in, which was just as well. I doubt whether you would have survived.’

‘That would have been no great loss,’ she said, a statement of fact, without bitterness or self-pity.

I ignored the response, instructing her to wash while Maria and I made the bedroom more presentable. I signalled the old woman to follow me, satisfied that when Isabella countermanded my order, she scurried out at my bidding, content that someone responsible was in charge at last. ‘And wash behind your ears,’ I instructed before closing the bathroom door, ‘I’m going to inspect them.’ I chanced a fleeting glance at the wall mirror to see how she would respond. Her expression did not change, but I was relieved when she reached for the soap.

In the bedroom I drew the curtains and threw open french windows overlooking a balcony. It was stifling hot inside, and although it was a pleasant day the fresh air brought a chill which freshened up the room. Meanwhile, Maria changed the bed-clothes, and within minutes there was a sense of order far removed from the chaos of the addict. My eyes settled on the half-empty bottle of barbiturates on the bedside cabinet—the last thing Isabella needed. I did not know how bad the withdrawal symptoms would be, if and when they returned, but there was enough ‘lift’ in the cough medicine I had found to offset part of the reaction until I could persuade her to get proper medical attention.

I opened the cabinet, intending to remove anything I considered harmful. On the upper shelf there was a tangled mess of an addict’s equipment, hypodermic syringes, spare needles and implements at whose application I could only guess. On the two shelves below were stacks of what looked like leather-bound exercise books; I counted eight. As any bibliophile might appreciate, my action in removing the top book was instinctive; it was a book, and books exist to be opened.

I looked first at the binding, which must have been done by a professional because, despite its age, evident from the scratching and rubbing of the leather, the hinges were firm and the pages bound in were still tight. Centred on the front was a name impressed in the leather, so faint that it seemed like blind tooling, but on closer examination there were still flecks of gilt. Just a name, but nothing to indicate whether it referred to the book’s ownership, although a coat of arms might have been more likely, or to its author. It took a few moments to follow the outlines of the ornate calligraphy but when I made out the name, Marguerite Gonzago, it came as no surprise. Inside was a handwritten diary which, apart from a few words, was indecipherable, although on the front page was reference to the date, 1525. I picked up other volumes, which were much the same and I realised with a sense of elation that these were the diaries of the Marchesa’s fascinating ancestor. But then the penny dropped; surely Isabella had spoken of what amounted to a dream? She could not even be sure they existed!

At that moment, Maria interrupted my introspection by thrusting a cup of coffee under my nose, and I came back to the present, embarrassed by complacent preoccupation with old books, while the immediate problem was to ensure that Isabella fully recovered from her ordeal. I put the books away.

When Isabella joined us shivering slightly, pale and drawn but more alert, we put her to bed, the clean sheets warmed by a hot water bottle Maria had thoughtfully provided. The Marchesa remained silent, evidently lost in thought—trying to cope with whatever her torment was - but gradually the shivering stopped and her eyes focused on me. I smiled encouragingly and she made a brave effort at showing her appreciation. ‘I suppose I should thank you,’ she announced, ‘but I’m not sure I can come to terms with the humiliation.’

I shrugged. ‘I can’t believe you are vain enough to hate someone for wanting to help. All I can say is that if we like or love someone, we make allowances for weaknesses or idiosyncrasies that in others we would find a source of irritation. I care for you, and that means that throughout what you described as humiliation, I saw only the same beautiful woman, all the more impressive for her stoicism in the face of terrible suffering.’

Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Stoicism! Thank God you did not see me earlier!’

I squeezed her hand. ‘It looks as though the worst may be over for the moment, although only you will know. I doubt whether this was the first time.’

She shook her head. ‘Withdrawal symptoms can last weeks, but I’ve passed the critical point for now.’ She stopped and suddenly giggled. ‘I don’t know if it is the same expression in English—but do you say, “kicking the habit”?’ When I nodded, she asked if I knew the origin of the expression. ‘There is a period of vomiting and incontinence, both accompanied by the most terrible cramps, a sight so disgusting that I wouldn’t even allow Maria to see me, but after that there are spells of twitching, which must look quite hilarious, and this time I actually counted the number of times I had these spasms in my legs, making the foot shoot out involuntarily, that is, “kicking the habit”!’

‘Kicking the habit,’ I mused. ‘I don’t know enough about drug-addiction to offer advice, but what do you think? If you are over the worst, does that mean there is a chance of stopping completely?’

She sighed. ‘Five years ago I would have been very confident, no problem! Now, older and wiser, I live day by day.’

‘Is there any way I can help?’

She shook her head. ‘The love of a good man, and all that? I would like to believe it was possible, but it is not practical. You would need to be here night and day. At times there might be cause for physical restraint.’

It was not a subject for rational discussion. ‘It will kill you in the end,’ I pointed out. ‘What a terrible waste.’

Isabella smiled. ‘I must aim for the middle course. I will not give up without a fight; knowing you care gives me strength.’

‘What about going into a clinic?’

‘I have done that. Believe it or not, once I was even worse! The last injection I had was on the day before we went riding. I used to be on heroin, getting to the stage where I was in trouble if I did not have a fix every eight hours. At the clinic they wearied me off it by substituting a milder drug, Methadone. “Milder” is not the right word, but it acts more slowly. It doesn’t inflict the extreme peaks and troughs of something as powerful as heroin but equally it is not as demanding; I can go up to thirty-six hours between doses. You’ve no idea what a relief that is compared with eight.’

‘So what went wrong? Why couldn’t you have replenished your supply? Or were you trying to break the habit?’

She smiled. ‘I’m not that brave. My supply simply dried up unexpectedly.’

‘But if you are a registered addict, are you not entitled to get it legally?’

Her expression was sardonic. ‘My husband is a good man and I am very fond of him, but you must understand that our position in society is such that we cannot be as open about these things as people of the middle and working classes, too numerous to be in the public eye. My treatment was very private and afterwards I made an error of judgement in dealing with a supplier, a doctor who…let us say he is no credit to his profession. I tried once before to leave him but he blackmailed me.’

‘Threatened to name you as an addict?’

She nodded. ‘Now he tells me his own supplies have been cut off. I don’t believe him, but there is nothing 1 can do.’

‘I suppose this was all at short notice?’

‘Out of the blue. The injury to my horse upset me more than I realised at the time, so I telephoned him a few days ahead of schedule. At first he agreed, but when the consignment did not arrive I phoned again and…Of course, the very awareness of knowing there is nothing in the pipeline made me anxious, and that anxiety built up, accelerating my need for the drug.’

‘The income he receives must be quite high,’ I speculated. ‘Isn’t it like cutting off his nose to spite his face?’

She smiled at the analogy. ‘Who can say? All I know is that it increases my dependence on him. When an addict becomes dependent she will do anything.’

‘Bastard!’

Isabella raised her eyebrows, surprised that I should react so violently to a situation she accepted fatalistically. ‘But thanks to you I can probably hang on until I find a fresh supplier.’

‘How will you do that?’

‘Paolo Agostini.’

I realised with a shock that I had completely forgotten the reason for being here, but even so I hesitated. Further anxiety or pressure could only aggravate Isabella’s condition, and on a more personal level, I was reluctant to break the spell of intimacy.

‘Paolo is not my favourite young man,’ I conceded. ‘Don’t tell me he is a drugs dealer too!’

She took my hand affectionately, conscious of the note of jealousy. ‘Of course not. Paolo is very disapproving of my addiction, but he has learnt to accept it, and he would do anything to help me. When I told him about the previous trouble with the doctor, it was all I could do to prevent him from killing the man. When he had calmed down he told me that a number of students at the university are registered addicts and some of them get methadone legally.’

‘Legally! It sounds terrible.’

‘Of course it is, but there are degrees of terribleness. The doctors merely regard methadone, and other similar drugs, as the lesser of two evils. To addicts like myself it becomes no more of a problem than being a diabetic who mustn’t miss her regular dose of insulin.’

Isabella’s need to find an alternative supply meant that I could no longer conceal the news of the attack on Paolo, so as soon as there was a suitable ‘peg’ on which to introduce the subject I passed on the information Barletta had given me, watering down the incident so that he seemed to have escaped with a few minor cuts and bruises. My account must have been convincing because she took it well, encouraging my belief that, short of an unexpected relapse, she was well on the road to recovery.

Nine

Although I had not witnessed the more unpleasant aspects of Isabella’s withdrawal symptoms, the session had been traumatic. Life had not been without its hazards but, mercifully, the more harrowing experiences had involved people who meant little to me; this time had been very much more painful. Now that she seemed over the worst, I was relieved when Isabella declined my offer to stay the night. It was not just a question of pride; we both knew that sooner or later she would have to cope with the problem herself.

After a restful eight hours’ sleep I was tempted to phone to find out how she was coping, but hesitated -hoping, for Isabella’s sake, that she would still be asleep. But she might have been telepathic, for a few minutes later the hotel switchboard put through her call.

‘Matt, I’m worried about Paolo,’ she announced, without the customary small talk. ‘He’s not answering his telephone!’

‘Hang on a moment,’ I cut in, trying to conceal my irritation at her preoccupation with the young thug. ‘First things first. How are you? What sort of night did you have?’

‘I managed a couple of’ hours,’ she replied, the momentary hesitation an indication that she was still on edge. Knowing her now as I did, I guessed that she was putting on a brave front, and my annoyance evaporated. I felt guilty at having ducked the responsibility of an all-night vigil. It was all very well to maintain that she would have to learn to cope alone, but that did not mean she did not need support.

‘I’ll come over,’ I announced.

‘Thanks. I would like to see you.’

‘But you’re still worried about Paolo?’ I added in answer to the unspoken question. ‘I’ll check his apartment on the way.’

The relief in her voice overcame my antagonism towards Paolo Agostini, but to save myself a wasted journey I telephoned Inspector Barletta.

‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked, instinctively suspicious.

‘It’s time we made our peace,’ I replied, with my prepared answer. ‘I tried his apartment.’

‘If you want my opinion, you are wasting your time on that spoilt brat,’ he declared, too matter-of-fact to be vindictive, ‘but if you really want to see him he is still in hospital. He could have been discharged yesterday, but I persuaded the doctor to detain him another day for observation.’

‘You did say it was nothing serious?’

‘I want him where we can keep an eye on him!’

‘You think he might try to get back at the men who attacked him?’

‘Partly to protect him from his own arrogance,’ he retorted, only indirectly answering my question, ‘and because I don’t want him, or any of his militant student friends, to imagine they can manipulate the law, to use it as it suits them. He still refuses to say anything about the attack; it is as though he is prepared to provoke us into violence, which would provide further evidence that society is corrupt.’

‘Isn’t that a problem common to every police force in the world?’

‘From criminals, of course, but we don’t have to take it from overgrown children. Few of them are as tough as they pretend. Young Paolo has not yet seen the inside of a police cell, so he may have a surprise in store. Bored as he is with being confined to a hospital ward it is nothing like as daunting as a cell, and if they decide they cannot hold him any longer, I may well detain him. We call it “assisting us with our enquiries.”’

Isabella’s reaction over the phone was surprising; ostensibly relieved that Paolo was all right, yet strangely restless, as though there were other questions unresolved. I wondered for a moment what could be troubling her and then it dawned on me that she regarded Paolo not only as a friend, and, no doubt, lover, but also as a potential source of methadone. It was pointless shirking the issue, so I asked if my assumption was correct.

At first she was evasive, perhaps ashamed to admit dependence after her show of confidence the previous day, in case she be accused of letting me down. But when it became apparent that I was not passing judgement, she confessed. ‘It is not possible at the moment for me to go into a clinic again and I don’t think I can hold out much longer without treatment.’

‘But if you are over the worst?’

‘That may be so, but the withdrawal symptoms could continue for days, even weeks; admittedly not so badly, but not pleasant. Besides, I am resigned to living with methadone; as I said, it is not so very different from diabetes.’

‘So as soon as Paolo can contact one of his friends…?’ When she made no reply, I prompted, ‘Meanwhile?’

‘I shall have to grit my teeth.’

At that point, knowing Barletta’s attitude towards Paolo, I decided that to cushion the strain of the next forty-eight hours I would try to get alternative help as soon as possible. Vespucci was the only person I knew who might have access to drugs; in fact, it required no stretch of the imagination to believe he could even be involved in the business. I took a taxi to his office where, despite the fact that I was not expected and from the degree of activity in the outer office he obviously had a busy schedule, I was kept waiting for less than fifteen minutes, during which I struggled to come up with a plausible story.

Even as we shook hands, exchanging inane smiles, my brain raced in all directions snatching at and rejecting half-formed ideas, until it was evident that the only approach which had a reasonable chance of success was some version of the truth, suitably packaged in a cloak of hysteria.

‘I have a problem,’ I began, once the pleasantries were over.

His smile broadened, and he threw his arms wide. ‘That is why I am here, to help people with their problems.’

‘I fear this is an imposition which transcends the bounds of friendship,’ I insisted, torn between a desire to avoid his eyes, and the need to appear sincere; hypocrisy had always stuck in my gullet. ‘I’m very conscious of having abused your trust, something for which I never even apologised, and now I risk causing offence by pressing for something I have no right to ask.’

Vespucci adopted what I imagined to be his fatherly expression. ‘Let me be the judge of that.’

I took a deep breath and blurted it out. ‘It has to do with…drugs!’ This time I made a point of looking at the floor.

Vespucci looked suitably alarmed.

‘I realise how shocked you must be,’ I hurried on, ‘but I need to get something. It may not even be what they call a hard drug, and then only the minutest amount, just this once. Short of going to the hospital, who might advise the police, getting me deported virtually on the spot, I didn’t know what to do. Then I thought of you, not only as a person of influence, but as someone who must have a vast range of contacts which would include doctors and chemists who…’I broke off. I’m sorry! I had no right even to think…

‘You are the last person I would associate with drugs,’ he protested.

I hesitated over lying on that score; it was quite possible that he could somehow catch me out, and that would be the end of my plan. ‘No, you are right. To be honest, I am as shocked as you, but I have a friend who…unfortunately…’

He smiled, reassuringly. ‘It is good to know there are still people who care enough about their friends to run the risk of breaking the law. I sympathise, and wish I could help, but drugs! It’s not only a terrible business, but a man of my position would be extremely vulnerable if he were to get involved, even by way of a casual introduction.’

‘Of course!’ I insisted. ‘It was remiss of me to come here.’

‘Who is this friend of yours? From the short time you have been in the city, it could only be a woman.’

I rewarded his intuition with a sheepish smile. ‘That is a question a gentleman cannot answer. All I can say is that I care about this person.’

He leant back in his swivel chair and stared at the ceiling. ‘It’s even worse for a woman. Doesn’t she have her own supply?’

‘That source has dried up, temporarily. She gets it from a doctor and I suspect he’s doing it to extort more money, the bastard!’

Vespucci appeared shocked. ‘She would be doing herself and the community a Service by reporting this man to the police. He sounds no better than a pusher.’

‘Exactly. A doctor should be trying to wean her away from drugs, not make her even more dependent. As it happens, it’s something called Methadone, which is more low-key than heroin or cocaine, but it is still addictive?

‘Terrible? he announced, with a shake of his head. Then he seemed to reach a decision. ‘You say this is not a hard drug like heroin or cocaine?’

I hesitated. ‘I…I don’t know how the medical profession would classify it, but she said it is regarded as milder, and therefore a safe substitute for heroin?

‘What I meant was that if it is not the sort of drug sold by gangsters and hoodlums…’

I shook my head fervently.

‘…then I might be able to persuade one of my doctor friends to regard it as a special case—a matter of treatment?

‘That is what I was hoping?

‘I would like to help the poor girl, but it is an enormous risk—for the doctor as well as me?

I remained silent.

He studied me intently for a moment and continued, as though thinking aloud, ‘The only way we might make it work is to do it on the basis of an exchange of favours, which you may know is very much a part of our tradition, at least, in some parts. The doctor agrees to do me a favour, incurring a debt repayable when he needs something in return. The same would obviously apply between us?

‘Of course?

He smiled. ‘I admire your English coolness, but it is a little more serious than you realise. A casual favour is something we take for granted, and frequently forget. This is the equivalent of a debt which can be claimed even years later?

‘I understand?

‘Don’t worry. All I need in this case is your help in finding the Agostini journal?

‘But I have already said I would try to help, if I can find it. I meant it?

‘That is all I ask—your word as a gentleman that you will hand the journal over to me if it ever reappears.’

It would have been glib to give an instant decision. I hated the idea of being in Vespucci’s debt and I doubted if he really had any prior claim to the journal, but while my ideas of honour were very different from those of Paolo Agostini and Vespucci, I would not go back on my word if the lawyer was able to help Isabella. ‘I’ll take whatever oath you wish,’ I said.

The smile reappeared. ‘I have faith in you, Matthew. I think you are closer to the journal than even you appreciate.’

Although Vespucci promised to act at once, there were so many potential problems that I realised that it was pointless sitting by a phone holding my breath. Instead, I took a calculated gamble and gave him Isabella’s telephone number where I could be reached for the rest of the day.

At the Contini home, Isabella’s buoyancy of the previous day had gone. Although she had made an effort to keep up appearances—her hair had been brushed until it shone, and she wore a little make-up—her face was drawn, and it was obvious her condition had deteriorated. I discovered that the withdrawal symptoms returned intermittently so that there were sustained periods of cramp followed by others relatively pain-free.

She entertained me in the drawing-room to a snack lunch Maria had prepared, and although she did not eat she was attentive to my needs; similarly, she made a conscious effort to respond to my laboured conversation, although it was evidently difficult for her to concentrate. A couple of times she left the room, to return paler and even more drawn, and my own nerves began to fray as we waited for the phone call. It eventually came during one of her better spells, and she took the receiver from Maria, speaking in Italian for what seemed an inordinately long time, although it was probably only for a few minutes. When she replaced the receiver she seemed relieved but puzzled.

‘That was Dr Carregio,’ she announced.

‘Vespucci’s contact?’

She frowned. ‘Strange. He asked for you, but by the time Maria had put him through he must have realised that the number was familiar. It should be; he is my regular supplier!’

‘So he was lying? Bastard!’

Isabella shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He apologised at some length for the hold-up and said the fresh supply had only just arrived. As you know, I thought it was a ploy to make me more dependent on him so that he could put the price up, or something even worse, but that isn’t the case either.’

When Carregio arrived and was shown into the drawing-room, I hid in the hallway and watched through a gap in the door which Isabella had left ajar. He was a large, rotund, middle-aged man who reminded me of the Hercule Poirot created by Peter Ustinov in the film version of Agatha Christie’s novels. Like Ustinov’s character he had an amiable expression; in fact he was not bad-looking, although the effect was ruined by an ill-fitting blond wig. It was evident from his expensive clothes that he cared about his appearance, and yet the all-important wig not only fitted badly, but was probably the cheapest thing he wore.

Without preliminaries he produced a packet, laying it on the table with a flourish, and then began to chat with Isabella like an old friend. They spoke in Italian, too quickly for me to follow everything, but it was evident that he was behaving as though nothing untoward had happened. At the same time, Isabella’s morale had risen sharply so that, apart from the fact that she was in a dressing-gown, there was no reason for him to suppose she had been ill.

When Isabella picked up the methadone I sensed she wanted him to go so that she could use it. It was time to play an active role in the conversation, so I pushed open the door and joined them. Carregio looked startled by my sudden appearance from nowhere, but he recovered quickly and greeted me with an expansive smile, implying that any friend of the Marchesa was automatically a friend of his.

Isabella was visibly restless, anxious to be alone, but she paused long enough to introduce us.

Returning the doctor’s smile I confided that meeting him was a unique experience. ‘I never met anyone as low as a drug pusher. I’d describe you as ‘scum’, except you would probably take it as a compliment.’

When he stared at me, uncomprehending, I realised that he did not understand English. Trying to repeat the insult in his own language would have been such a protracted affair that the effect would have been lost. I called Isabella, needing her to translate, but she had vanished into her bedroom. I turned back to Carregio, gesturing him to sit down. When he continued to stare at me blankly, I made the point by nudging him in the chest so that he was forced backwards until the back of his legs came into contact with the base of an armchair, at which stage he overbalanced and fell into the seat. He began to protest loudly, but when he saw the expression on my face he quietened down, glancing persistently at the door in the hope that Isabella would appear to rescue him.

I said nothing, intending that the silence should worry him, and by the time Isabella returned, he was perspiring, dabbing at his temples and neck with an outsize handkerchief. In contrast, Isabella was transformed, her eyes bright again and the face quite beautiful. It was as though the nightmarish interruption in the supply of her drug had never happened.

I continued to wait while he protested to her, demanding an explanation for my strange behaviour, but she dealt with him with a combination of grace and authority that had a calming effect and within moments he was quiet and looking to me for the next move. Without taking my eyes off him, I instructed her to ask if his visit was the result of a call from the lawyer Vespucci.

Carregio looked baffled by the name, repeating his earlier explanation that the latest batch of methadone had only just arrived.

‘Are you sure he doesn’t understand English?’ I asked Isabella, watching him closely to see how he reacted to every word. At her nod, I added, ‘He’s conveniently forgetting that he came on the phone asking for me, so we know he is lying. Tell him that you’re frightened of me, that I’m dangerous, that I’m an English gangster, whatever you think he will accept. Say that if he doesn’t stop lying I’m going to cut his nose off!’

Isabella looked startled, as though she was not too certain if I meant it, but she repeated the warning with conviction; it sounded realistic enough to me and must have had the desired effect because he suddenly giggled, a note of hysteria in his voice, before shrugging and asking what he could do to convince me.

I scowled and moved towards the armchair in which he sat stiffly, trying not to flinch at my approach. Standing over him I unbuttoned my jacket’s middle button to gain access to something in an inside pocket, but before he could see what it was, I moved behind the chair. As he turned, nervously, to follow the movement, I put out a restraining hand, forcing him to look straight ahead. Instinctively he looked up, straining his neck and his pupils almost disappearing as he tried to look behind him, to see what I was doing. But I reached over and grabbed his nose, effectively freezing him in that position. His eyes closed, whether from pain or apprehension I did not know, and he seemed to hold his breath.

‘Tell him,’ I instructed Isabella, ‘that I am holding a knife and this is his last chance.’

I was so convincing that she was shocked and looked instinctively for a weapon. I could have produced a fountain pen or a comb, but I was reluctant to lose her expression. It must have helped because I understood enough Italian to realise that he wanted to speak, but was suffocating under the pressure of my fingers on his nose. I removed my hand, transferring its attention to the wig, merely resting on top of his head, an implication that if he moved, it would be without his hair. He sat still.

When Carregio eventually spoke, it was to plead with Isabella, throwing himself on her mercy, and I was not surprised when she reported that he was terrified Vespucci could kill him for speaking out.

‘And I will kill him if he doesn’t,’ I pressed. ‘But point out there is no need for Vespucci to know, we certainly won’t tell him. There is only one more thing I need to check.’

Realising that my threats had been a bluff, Isabella seemed to relax, a half-smile forming, and I had to resist a strange compulsion to go over and kiss her. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you what a coincidence it is that the supplies which dried up only a few days ago should suddenly come on stream the day I go to Vespucci for help? Tell him I want to know why Vespucci made him cut off your supply.’

The implication was slow in registering on Isabella, and she was tempted to query my meaning, but I shook my head and directed her to put the question to Carregio. This time he made no effort to deny the validity of the accusation; again shrugging helplessly and explaining that he had merely carried out orders.

‘Why?’ I insisted. ‘He must have had a reason. Was it just you, or everyone?’

His answer drained Isabella of colour. ‘Just me,’ she translated. ‘Vespucci didn’t tell him why.’

‘Do you believe him?’

She nodded.

‘Then he can go. Warn him to say nothing—for his own sake.’

When Carregio had scurried out, she rounded on me. ‘Why would that man do such a thing?’

‘Do you know each other?’

She shook her head. ‘I know of him, as a member of various charity committees. I’m amazed that he knows someone as seedy as Dr Carregio.’

‘There has to be a reason. Men like Vespucci don’t act on a mere whim. Could he have something against you, or perhaps your husband?’

She shook her head, but then suddenly her spirits seemed to lift. ‘That is all in the past. I’m sure I can rely on Paolo for an alternative supply until I can get things organised for me to go back into the clinic and start again.’

Her optimism was encouraging. ‘You’re feeling better?’

‘Thanks to you,’ she replied. ‘It’s not the tremendous lift one gets from heroin which, even when you are experiencing it, doesn’t seem real. But after the last few days, it feels wonderful. As a man you wouldn’t appreciate the suffering a fashion-conscious woman endures through wearing tight shoes, but you might appreciate the relief she experiences when she takes them off at the end of the day.’

I smiled at the analogy.

‘I’ll never forget your kindness, Matt, and I want to repay you in some way.’ She broke off as I shook my head, and continued, ‘I know that friends don’t want gratitude, and what you did was of such magnitude that I could never repay you in full. Meanwhile, I want to make a gesture, to do something for you, anything.’

‘Anything?’ I leered, knowing that despite her beauty, sexual desire had waned, replaced by a deep affection for her as a person, and admiration for her courage.

‘If that question means what I think it does, then it hardly constitutes a gesture on my part,’ she replied. ‘We can make love at any time, as friends, but I am not sure you are serious. I suspect there is someone else in your life.’

I nodded, but did not elaborate. ‘There is a favour I am tempted to ask,’ I said. ‘When Maria and I got you into the bath, I looked in your bedside cabinet. I was searching for some medication which might have helped, and I found a handwritten journal. I guessed it belonged to your ancestor, whose name I’ve forgotten.’

She nodded.

‘May I see it?’

Isabella seemed surprised that I needed to ask. ‘Of course. I no longer have any secrets from you. Marguerite’s journal is what I have searched for most of my adult life, and what now gives me more satisfaction than anything…anything. It’s wonderful to have someone with whom to share that pleasure.’

I was conscious of sweat on the palms of my hands, fearful of the next question. ‘You haven’t had it long?’

‘Aldo Agostini gave it to me the night he was killed.’

I experienced a pain as my heart and stomach seemed to collide, as my worst fears were realised. ‘Gave it to you?’

‘Of course,’ she declared, a slight frown hinting at disapproval. ‘He thought it would be safer with me; he said that someone was after the journals, that some men had been watching the apartment—but you know. I was there when he telephoned you, in fact it was me who persuaded him to ask your advice.’

Relieved, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to steady my nerves. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

She sighed. ‘Because I have had other matters on my mind. I didn’t volunteer it initially because I was scared I must have been the last person to see him alive - apart from the murderer. I told you before how sensitive my family is to scandal of any nature.’

I could understand her predicament, but another, more worrying factor occurred to me, the journal was too ‘hot’ for her to keep; Aldo’s killer would not hesitate to act again if the whereabouts of the journal were discovered. I pointed out the danger she was in, and suggested that the journal be moved to a place of safety.’

‘No. I am not letting it out of my sight!’

‘And if you’re killed in the process?’

‘No one knows I’ve got it, apart from you and me.’

‘I’m not so sure. It might explain some of Vespucci’s actions, and why he hinted that I was much nearer to it than I realised. Which reminds me, in return for getting your methadone, I swore to help him get what he only knows as Aldo’s journal. He has only guessed at what it is, but he isn’t far from the mark.’

She seemed worried by my revelation. ‘Don’t worry,’ I announced. ‘Admittedly, I gave him my word of honour—he claims he wants it for the city, not himself, of course, but that doesn’t extend to betraying my friends.’

She leaned across and squeezed my hand. ‘Thank you. I’ll read you some of it and then you will understand why I cannot give it up.’

Ten

‘Marguerite’s journals cover less than five years of her life,’ Isabella explained. ‘There is no way of knowing whether she simply stopped writing, or whether there were others which have been lost over the years. It’s very frustrating because what there are make compelling reading. She had an eye for detail and, as I suspected from the stories handed down, her outlook was very unusual for a woman of the period. Let me just browse through the parts that interest you the most, her relationship with the Capulets.’

Opening what seemed like the third in date order, she rifled through the first dozen or so pages until she found an appropriate place to start. Having identified the year as 1525, she began to read aloud, translating into a modern idiom as she went;:

‘May 15th

‘It is hard to accept that almost a year has elapsed since I was last in Verona visiting dear Beatrice, and it is a measure of the deep bond between us that it seems no more than a week. Yet how I look forward to seeing her—the only true friend among my own sex.

‘Beatrice has no idea how much I admire her tranquillity and her generosity of spirit. Nor can she know (and nor would I admit it even to my confessor) how from time to time I envy the predictability of her well regulated life surrounded, as she is, by a caring family and friends. I have lost count of the number of friends I have throughout Italy yet there are occasions when I experience the weirdest sensation of being utterly alone—even in company.

‘Our friendship may have been sparked by the attraction of opposites, but it could not have survived without an exceptional understanding that transcends such basic elements as respect and comradeship. I know I am a woman apart, but Beatrice too is so different from the shallow matrons who have little interest outside the home. Beneath their false smiles, they are jealous of my friendship with men of royal and noble blood, yet Beatrice shares my contempt for snobbery. I know that Prince Escalus admires her more than he admits, but she remains innocent of such intrigues. There was a time when I would tease her for remaining faithful to such a dry old stick as Capulet. How boring, I remember saying.

‘But enough of this rambling…she has chosen her path, and I mine…

‘May 17th

‘Shocked by the change in Beatrice. Her face is pale and drawn; her eyes have lost their sparkle and constantly fill with tears, as though she has all of the world’s troubles on her shoulders. Worse, she is so withdrawn, almost a stranger haunted by dark secrets.

‘At first, she would admit nothing, except that Juliet has rebelled against her parents’ authority, but that did not satisfy me for a moment. I know Beatrice too well to accept that she would be so overwhelmed by a situation that is quite common to families with daughters of that age. I would not let the matter drop and eventually the truth emerged, which is far worse than the problems of headstrong youth. My poor, dear friend is in love! I cannot believe it, especially when I recall how amused she was by my succession of amours, listening wide-eyed and not a little shocked, yet always fondly because of her regard for my happiness. Now, despite her strong code of honour, she has fallen in love, and for the worst kind of young man.’

Beatrice, Lady Capulet was so touched by her friend’s concern that, impulsively, she kissed her on the lips. ‘We have become so close that we see much of ourselves in each other; as looking in a mirror. You forget that you have always been the more beautiful, and to make matters worse, you are looking particularly young and refreshed; by comparison I must seem old and tired.’ She gestured towards Marguerite’s fashionable dress, the velvet-covered arms and wrists covered with heavy, lavishly jewelled bracelets in the latest style.

Marguerite ignored the compliment. ‘You look ill, not tired. Something is wrong.’

Beatrice admitted the latest confrontation with Juliet, and of the estrangement that followed.

‘But you were always such good friends; would it help if I speak to her? She might confide in me, one rebel to another.’

Beatrice forced a smile. ‘I am frightened that if there is a good reason for her behaviour, we may not wish to hear it. Talk to her by all means, but there may still be a problem, she is seldom here when we seek her out. Her cousin Tybalt says…’

‘Tybalt! That scoundrel? He is more likely to seduce the child than offer her a shoulder to cry on.’

Beatrice’s smile froze. ‘You do him an injustice. He treats her with great affection. I have seen them together, and it is clear that he sees her as a little sister, not as a woman.’

‘Oh, I stand corrected. I would have said that no young woman was safe…’

Beatrice’s stomach began to twist itself into knots. ‘You…have you…with Tybalt, I mean?’

Marguerite laughed. ‘I am not attracted to brash young men. Their interests are so limited. I concede that I would not show him the door, if I was in a certain mood.’ She stopped in confusion as Beatrice stifled a sob. ‘What have I said?’

Beatrice shook her head, unable to answer, but Marguerite kept at her until the truth emerged. Yet even as the words tumbled out she was conscious of an enormous relief at having someone at last in whom she could confide.

Marguerite said nothing until she had finished, partly because she did not wish to interrupt the uninhibited flow, and partly because she was stunned by the news. Eventually she tried to lighten her friend’s mood with a bright smile. ‘Why the tears? Is it not the most exciting thing that has happened to you in twenty years?’

Beatrice sniffed noisily, trying to recover her composure. ‘I have never been so unhappy.’

‘That is only natural with your first affaire\ Wait until you have had as many as me.’

Despite her depression, Beatrice smiled. ‘How many is that?’ When Marguerite pretended to count on her fingers, she added, more seriously, ‘But how many have you actually loved?’

The counting stopped abruptly. ‘I should have realised that was the problem. The difference is that even from the start I was too experienced to fall in love. You, my poor little kitten, have barely learned to swim, and you are out of your depth.’

‘Then, for all your experience, you cannot help?’

‘If it is the truth you seek, I will admit to you, and to no one else, that for all my bravado, I do know what it is like to love, and to suffer. But I also know we survive these upsets.’

‘Then tell me what I must do.’

‘What you must do, or what I would do? We are different creatures.’

‘What you would do. I would learn from you.’

Marguerite was silent for several moments, her eyes not leaving the other woman. ‘If I was certain that my man loved me as much, if not more, than I loved him, I would leave my husband.’

‘I cannot leave Capulet.’

‘Cannot, or will not? It is the honest course, and you are an honest woman.’

‘It would break his heart. He loves me.’

‘Then suffer. Capulet is nearly twice your age. In ten years or so he will die, but by then you will be too old to take advantage of that freedom. My advice is to live with his nephew, go to Florence where I have good friends. That way his love for you will grow, so that by the time your beauty begins to fade he will not notice.’ _

‘There is also Juliet.’

‘You have just admitted that she has a will of her own. However her present predicament is resolved, she will leave you sooner or later. Your duty is to yourself.’

Beatrice shook her head.

‘Then bury yourself in a nunnery!’ exclaimed Marguerite, unable to conceal her irritation. ‘That was the fate of my cousin in Florence. Do not be surprised if that is where you will end. It is not a woman’s world.’

‘I fear not.’

‘Her husband simply banished her, for one act which she regretted long before he found out. The villain would have dragged me to his bed many times if I had not put him to shame. I love the city but the Florentines are hypocrites. Do you remember the Imperiale Gardens? Only a few years ago there was a sign at the main entrance which read: ‘Entry to these gardens is forbidden to geese, women and goats’. Nothing much has changed.

‘May 18th

‘In the light of my friend’s unhappiness I find myself reassessing my attitude towards Capulet. I had never really given him much thought and I realise now that my opinion was coloured by a contempt for men in general. I admit now that I have come to recognise some of the qualities she admires so much. For a start, he is not as idle as the other noblemen of my acquaintance; in fact he leads an unusually busy life. Not only do all the branches of the powerful Capulet house look to him as patriarch, but the townsfolk, with the uncomprehending trust of their class, make similar demands, having for many years regarded him as their personal oracle and automatically the arbitrator in their interminable disputes.

‘Apart from sitting with the city’s council of Signori, and his long and intimate friendship with Prince Escalus, he appears to have no special influence. But he is a good listener and an astute judge of human nature, so they flock to him, as though by right, for counsel and favours which he ungrudgingly provides in the evenings or whenever he has a spare moment between the supervision of the family wine business and his own sizeable estates.

‘Despite what Beatrice says, he is not the inspired businessman people imagine him to be; he is too easily distracted by a concern for others less fortunate than himself. But he keeps his head above water by the momentum from his tremendous energy coupled with the ability to pick good managers on whose integrity he can rely. In private affairs I am sure he is over-generous to friends, and those unfortunates who managed to capture his sympathy.

‘At sixty, Capulet is still a handsome figure, very tall and slightly stooping, but the stoop is a long-standing physical characteristic. His white hair is cut short, half-way down the ear, in the French style followed by the younger men, and his beard neat and stylishly trimmed, although again this must be coincidental, because fashion is surely the last thing to concern him. His weather-beaten face is lined, etched years ago through a habit of squinting against the sun. Offsetting the white hair, the stoop and lined face, his eyes are bright and clear and his complexion ruddy and glowing with health, and I do believe that he has looked much the same age for the past fifteen years, which would mean originally much older than he actually was, and recently considerably younger. But, of course, in comparison, his nephew Tybalt must seem like a Greek god.’

Juliet had ostensibly disappeared, but for once, Beatrice was too preoccupied to worry when her daughter did not return for supper; not only did conscience reassert itself, but when she realised the extent of her feelings, her self-assurance crumbled. Tybalt was something of a celebrity in Veronese society. It was evident that he was infatuated, but at his age that could not be guaranteed to last. In six months’ time, would he really need a middle-aged tutor in the arts, when he could have anyone he desired?

Having retired early to avoid facing her family, Beatrice endured a night of endless recrimination, yet in the morning she discovered she need not have bothered. She had risen even earlier than usual, only to find Capulet already dressed, lost in thought. From his appearance, he had not slept either. Capulet looked old, and in other circumstances she would have been worried for him. But when she enquired after his health, he insisted he was well, and made a conscious effort to pull himself together. The watery smile was an assurance that his depression was nothing to do with her infidelity, but when pressed Capulet’s reason nevertheless came as something of a bombshell; it was a problem of finance. Having played a small part in the administration of the estate, Beatrice knew that provision had been made for foreseeable setbacks, such as a disastrous wine harvest, and she could not imagine what had happened. It had to be something which had involved him alone, and her instincts were right. Highly embarrassed, Capulet admitted that he had borrowed money eighteen months earlier, and had forgotten about the loan until out of the blue repayment had been requested. He emphasised the point. ‘Not demanded, you understand.’

‘Nevertheless, repayment is a matter of honour?’ she hinted.

A helpless shrug conceded the accuracy of her guess. ‘It is nothing for you to worry about,’ he urged. ‘I can sell some of my horses.’

‘Then there is no problem, is there? You will not miss two or three from so many.’ Her look was challenging.

‘A few more than two or three, most of them, in fact.’

She touched his hand. ‘I realise how much they mean to you, but even so it does make more sense to sacrifice a hobby than to put at risk assets that are vital to our security.’

‘I know. I said there was nothing to worry about!’

‘Then what was it that kept you awake all night? If you were just feeling sorry for yourself, then I must remind you that you have only yourself to blame.’

‘It is not just that.’

She did not reply but her expression was all that was needed for him to elaborate. ‘You have always accused me of being obsessed with my horses. There is an element of truth in that, but it was always intended to be an investment. I built up the stables with the intention of raising a dowry that would enable Juliet to marry the right person.’

‘Oh.’

He smiled. ‘Wait, it is more complicated.’

‘Complicated?’

‘There is a simple solution, perhaps, yet one that eludes us. When Count Paris asked for our daughter’s hand, I was flattered. But she is young, and I considered it would not hurt either of them to wait a year or two.’

‘In her interests.’ The recollection penetrated Beatrice’s depression like a beam of light. Her immediate personal problem was to prevent the family from discovering the changed relationship between her and Tybalt. But even if she behaved with extreme caution, the risks were considerable. However, if Juliet were married, out of the house and embarking on a life of her own, then Paris and her new environment might cushion her against any such shock. Always desirable, the proposed marriage suddenly had an added attraction. She had to force herself to concentrate on what Capulet was saying.

‘When I acquainted him with my decision, I did not say that Juliet was too young; after all, many of her friends are already married, but that the delay was necessary for me to raise a dowry in keeping with our status.’

‘And he said that since his family were so rich he was not concerned with a dowry; it was our daughter he wanted, not our money.’

‘Exactly.’

Beatrice was confused. ‘But we cannot give her in marriage without a dowry.’

‘No, but Paris is impatient. If I were to change my mind and allow the marriage to take place soon, I am confident we could work something out. I am not a pauper yet. At least, that was my initial reaction.’

‘And you have spoken to him?’

‘Of course not! You retired early so I could not consult you, but I did speak with Juliet, and…well, she has taken leave of her senses.’

‘She refused to bring the marriage date foreward?’

He sniffed irritably. ‘She announced that she will not marry Count Paris, ever. Her reason is that she loves another, although significantly she refuses to name him.’

‘Because he does not exist; he is another of our daughter’s childish fairy tales.’

‘Then why?’

‘Obviously, she has not yet grown to love Paris—she told me he was dull - and she needed an excuse on the spur of the moment. She does not know any man outside the family. She sees no one un-chaperoned, and I cannot believe Nurse would tolerate any such impropriety. Did she tell you when and where she is supposed to have met the young god who has stolen her affections?’

‘No, but I was too surprised to question her at length. In any case, if her lies—or fairytales as you call them—were intended to escape marriage, I do not see what we can do. I am reluctant to force the girl merely because I am financially embarrassed.’

‘I would not talk of force, but of principle,’ Beatrice retorted. ‘We have an understanding with Paris; one that is known not only to Juliet, but to his kinsman, the Prince, and many of the Signori. Apart from the embarrassment that could be caused to everyone concerned, it is not fitting for a child to disobey her parents’ wishes. One would imagine that we were asking her to marry some fat old merchant instead of the most eligible young man in Verona.’

He sighed. ‘Let us talk to her together.’

But an unusually excitable ‘Juliet was adamant. She would rather be confined to a nunnery than marry against her will. In other circumstances, her parents might have recognised the hysteria and waited for her to calm down; but now they were more concerned with making a stand over what had become an issue of principle. Her refusal to name the person she claimed to love was seen by them as evidence that he did not exist. And if she was going to be obstinate, she would have to learn that they could be just as inflexible.

So it was that the family’s first serious quarrel ended in ill-humoured stalemate; Capulet, provoked beyond endurance, muttering, ‘You will do as you are told,’ as Juliet burst into tears, while Beatrice, upset by the sudden bitterness, blaming everything on herself. It was her weakness in falling in love with her husband’s nephew that had caused the tension, and now prevented her from restoring the family’s tranquillity; how could she possibly show Capulet affection now without being doubly conscious of her betrayal, and how could she persuade Juliet that love was not everything, when for love she was prepared to destroy her own life?

‘May 21st

‘Beatrice becomes more despondent by the hour. She is obsessed with fears that her love is not reciprocated which, from what I have seen, is evidently not the case; indeed I am surprised that Capulet does not suspect the way his nephew stares at her. Strangely, in the same way that I revised my opinion of Capulet, I have to admit that Tybalt no longer matches his reputation. Local gossip has it that he has not been involved in a duel for several months, and if this maturity is the result of Beatrice’s influence, then some good has already come from the relationship.

‘Today I urged her again to leave her husband, but she is so indecisive! The mystery over Juliet’s rebelliousness remains unresolved, which does not help. I wish we could speak, she has always admired me, but the girl is never here. I wish I knew what was going on.’

Unaware of Beatrice’s heartsearching, Tybalt assumed that she was upset by Juliet’s refusal to marry Paris. When, eventually, he was able to find the girl on her own, she seemed as pleased as ever to see him. Unable to admit the real reason for his questions, he was embarrassed by his underhandedness when she hesitantly avoided direct answers. At last, when she made him swear on oath that he would not repeat her story to anyone, he was happy to agree to her condition. Spying was not in character.

The revelation that she had been telling her parents the truth, that Paris did have a rival, came as a shock, but worse when that lover was revealed as a Montague. Yet even now his anger was muted. He was fond of his cousin, and hesitated over making his usual sweeping condemnation of the Montagues, much as he disliked them. Nor could he betray her trust by confronting Romeo with a challenge.

Nevertheless, in the face of her pathetic conviction that he alone of the family would understand, it was his duty to point out the hopelessness of such a match. He stooped to kiss her forehead. ‘I do not doubt that you love this boy,’ he conceded, ‘but the Montagues will never accept you, any more than we could ever accept one of them. Generations of hatred, and so many deaths, cannot be swept away overnight.’

‘I care nothing for this blood-feud; nor does Romeo. I do not care if the Montagues accept me, although Romeo says that his father is tired of the killing and wishes for a reconciliation. I am concerned only for those I love. I cannot understand why my father is so obdurate. He says that he is tied by his promise to Paris yet for all his shortcomings, Paris is an honourable man who would release him from that obligation. Even my mother will not unbend. And now you…’

He squirmed at the anxiety in her eyes. ‘I love you, cousin, and my wish is only for your happiness—but this is not the way.’

‘Then you cannot love me,’ she insisted, an edge to her voice.

He shrugged. ‘I do. But I also love my uncle, and Beatrice, your mother. There can be little happiness for anyone in such an impossible situation. But wait, there is time. I must soon go to Rome, on an errand for your mother. Have you ever been to the Holy City?’

She shook her head.

‘Then you must come with me! Nurse may accompany us, or if you prefer, I will take my mother as chaperone. What say you?’

Her face reflected the attractiveness of his suggestion, and she sighed. ‘I would love to come, but I am promised in marriage to Romeo.’

‘I am talking only of a month or two. You have your whole life ahead. Surely your intended husband will not go away?’

‘We have agreed that since I cannot obtain my parents’ blessing, I will marry first and seek their approval in time. Friar Lawrence has offered to marry us.’

Tybalt’s heart sank at the lack of time for manoeuvre. He stood. ‘I must think on it.’

‘You will not hurt him?’ she said, misunderstanding his preoccupation.

In a quandary, he shook his head. He could not break his word and confide in Beatrice or his uncle, and he feared that by approaching Romeo, even in goodwill, family honour might be endangered. Despite his contempt for the Montagues, he did not want to kill the man Juliet loved so devotedly; on the other hand if Romeo was a person of honour he might be persuaded to see the folly of their planned marriage.

The early afternoon sun was at its fiercest when Tybalt went in search of the Montagues. Normally the rival families kept to their own parts of the city, and on such excursions it was prudent to travel in numbers, but Tybalt was anxious not to be provocative, and took only his manservant Giorgio. It was not long before they encountered a group, led by one of the prickliest of men, Benvolio. It was said of him that his head was as full of quarrels as an egg full of nourishment, and that he would quarrel with a man whose cough had disturbed a dog sleeping in the sun, or merely if he used old laces to tie new boots.

Aware of his reputation, Tybalt despaired of a polite conversation; instead he approached Mercutio, who was on speaking-terms with both Montagues and Capulets. This time he was mistaken, for in response to a friendly greeting, Mercutio’s expression alone left no doubt that for the moment he was taking sides—against the Capulets.

‘If you are a friend of Romeo, you can help me,’ Tybalt said, pointedly ignoring the others beginning to form a circle around him. He was conscious of Giorgio fingering his dagger nervously.

‘Help? Why should I wish to help you?’

Even Benvolio was surprised by such animosity from someone of normally courteous disposition who might have been considered neutral. Benvolio seemed to have been inspired by Tybalt’s new-found pacifism because he was distinctly uneasy. He nudged Mercutio urgently and from the side of his mouth warned him that it was foolhardy to provoke a fight in broad daylight, in a public place. But Mercutio’s stare remained challenging and the tension was eased only slightly by the arrival of Romeo.

Tybalt smiled benignly at the irate Mercutio and shrugged. ‘Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.’

Mercutio chose to misinterpret the expression. ‘Your man?’

But Tybalt ignored him, addressing Romeo. ‘I came looking for you, without an army, as you can see. We must talk of an urgent matter.’

‘Of course, but I am late for a rendezvous. We can meet on the morrow if you will.’

‘The morrow is too late,’ Tybalt insisted. ‘Our business is today’s business.’

Romeo was evidently anxious to get away. ‘You do not change, friend Tybalt, forever giving orders. I have good reason for refusing to take offence, but do not overtax my goodwill.’

Tybalt struggled to control his anger. His concern had been not to injure this upstart Montague, for Juliet’s sake, but Romeo was surely patronising him. ‘Nor you mine. Do not play games with me, friend Romeo.’

Romeo shrugged. ‘Until I can explain, you will have to take my goodwill on trust. Now I must go.’

As he pushed through the milling group, Mercutio exploded. ‘Am I dreaming that my closest friend should submit to such dishonour? Come Tybalt, you ratcatcher, /will repair the damage!’

Tybalt’s Christian name was a version of Tibert, the cat in Reynard the Fox, and Mercutio’s manner in playing with words made it apparent he was spoiling for a fight. However, Tybalt’s sense of duty made the discussion with Romeo more important than personal pride on this occasion. ‘We have nothing to say to each other,’ he replied.

‘Oh, but we do, O Good King of Cats,’ cried Mercutio. ‘I will have one of your nine lives for a start. Hurry, or I will begin without you.’

When Tybalt drew his sword, he was surprised to see Romeo step between them and order Mercutio to put up his rapier.

But Mercutio was too incensed to listen to reason. Shaking his friend off, he advanced on Tybalt. ‘Come on, you passado!’ he cried.

They had barely crossed blades before Romeo acted more positively, this time appealing to his kinsmen to prevent a duel. He reminded them that the Prince had expressly forbidden brawling on the streets. It was common practice for duels to be contested on private land. Some were now prepared to turn deaf ears to the appeal, but others accepted the validity of what he said, if only from the practical point of view, and the general confusion prevented the contestants from sustaining a rhythm. The scuffle was already petering out, with Romeo still between them, when a half-hearted thrust from Tybalt went under someone’s arm to penetrate Mercurio’s guard. When he fell back in surprise at the blood oozing from his jerkin, an agitated Giorgio waited no longer to drag Tybalt away from the scene.

The general air of relief was punctuated by Mercurio’s loud curse. ‘A plague on both your houses. I am hurt.’

The others looked at him in disbelief and Benvolio took a closer look. ‘A scratch,’ he announced, dismissively. ‘We do not even need the surgeon.’ Romeo nodded his agreement.

‘It is enough,’ Mercutio retorted, looking at Romeo, more in dismay than anger. ‘I challenged the Capulet because of you, and he survives because of you. Why the devil did you come between us? His sword went under your arm, I did not see it.’

‘I am sorry. I meant to stop the fight, and I did. You have only a flesh wound.’

‘I am in pain.’

‘You have survived worse. I will talk to you on the morrow.’

Late for his assignation with Juliet, he left his friend in the hands of his kinsmen who helped him into a nearby house. Preoccupied with the secrecy surrounding the wedding ceremony, it never occurred to him that he would not see Mercutio again.

‘May 23

‘There is much talk of Mercutio’s death from what had seemed a mere scratch. If it were not for Tybalt’s unquestioned integrity, the whispers of poison would have had some foundation, but even the Montagues reject such wild rumours. The man is clearly upset and the fact that he has quarrelled with Beatrice causes me to wonder if she does not know more than she says. Beatrice is my dearest friend, but poison is a woman’s weapon and I fear she would stop at nothing to protect her lover.

‘The tension is unbearable. It cannot go on. It is time for me to speak up, despite my promise. Capulet must be made to consider the happiness of others, to appreciate the magnitude of his wife’s sacrifice in refusing to leave him. I am certain he is intelligent enough to understand that the solution lies with him, and that he must grant Beatrice her freedom.’

Lord Capulet was too much of a gentleman to show his feelings, but Marguerite Gonzago’s news had come as a total surprise, and beneath his outward composure he was deeply hurt. He knew that over the years Beatrice had been admired by a number of men, but he was equally convinced that she had never responded to their advances, so the news caught him off balance. Yet his love for her had always been unselfish, and by the time he had composed himself sufficiently for a confrontation he was torn between a personal sense of betrayal and humiliation and sympathy for her in what he realised must have been a terrible dilemma.

He came straight to the point, repeating the gist of the lecture he had been given on where his duty lay. Aware of Marguerite’s somewhat blinkered outlook, he needed to know how accurate her assessment of the situation had been; at the back of his mind was the wild hope that it was all an outrageous exaggeration.

But, responding to his calm approach, Beatrice made no effort to conceal the truth. ‘I have dreaded this moment more than anything in the world,’ she admitted. ‘I love you and always will…but…’ She did not complete the sentence, knowing how much the words would have wounded; yet convinced it was better in the long run to repay his honesty with her own.

His expression confirmed her fears. The sexual side to their relationship had seemed less important in recent years, but now her unconcealed desire for a younger lover merely served as a reminder of his recent inadequacy. Beatrice was suddenly grateful that on the infrequent occasions in recent weeks he had come to her room, conscience had made her responsive. But the truth was that her affection for him had become platonic, and once that part of the truth had emerged there was little point in maintaining the façade.

He sighed. ‘I know I am not the first husband to be duped in my own house; or that I will not be the last, but I still love you. I have always loved you before anyone else, even Juliet, so it would be foolish to over-react. That sort of love comes before pride so I must live with my humiliation, but there must be conditions. I will not ask you to swear on the holy book but you must give me your word you will not see him again…’

She shook her head, the tears beginning to run down her cheeks.

‘…or leave the Villa d’Este.’

She wiped her eyes. ‘Leaving you to face the scandal alone? It would not be fair!’

He shrugged. ‘Scandal will not harm me; it is more important that I do not lose face. People will assume that you have been banished, not that I have been a cuckold. It might seem heartless, but my obligation is to protect the Capulet name.’

She reached out to touch him but he moved imperceptibly away. The reflex gesture was wounding, but she could understand. ‘A curse on Marguerite’s honesty,’ she declared. ‘I told her I would not leave you.’

‘Your loyalty is touching,’ he said, his tone cynical. ‘But we cannot now behave as though nothing had happened. Apart from my feelings, how long do you think it would be before the whispers started, or you were with child? If you cannot decide, I must speak with my nephew.’

‘No!’

He snorted impatiently. ‘I would much prefer that the decision was yours. It will not be easy for me to speak to the boy. Only yesterday I loved him as a son, and all the time he has betrayed me.’

Beatrice hesitated before agreeing. Her fear was that Tybalt’s code of honour would prove stronger than his love for her, but she realised that she could no longer expect the best of both worlds. Perhaps it would be better if the decision was left with Tybalt. If it was written in the stars, she would have to accept her fate.

* * *

Tybalt was still reeling from the implications of Mercurio’s death, and the bombshell from his uncle exploded with shattering effect. The relationship with Beatrice had bothered his conscience from the beginning, but desperation had persuaded him that what Capulet did not know could not hurt him. He also imagined he could compensate in some small way by being particularly attentive and helpful. Now his uncle’s humiliation was his own, and his mind was paralysed by despair. He was conscious of Capulet talking, but the meaning of the words did not register.

Incensed by the apathetic reaction, Capulet shook him roughly by the shoulder. ‘Your distress is worthless, the damage is done. Do not imagine that silence will protect you, the only true peace lies in death.’ He handed Tybalt his jewelled dagger. ‘Here, would you really put an end to our sorrows?’ Tybalt, looking from him to the point of the dagger with resignation, reached for it, but Capulet snatched it away again angrily. ‘And what would that solve, fool?’

His anger began to penetrate Tybalt’s apathy, and Capulet tried again. ‘Do me the favour of acting as a man, of accepting your responsibility.’

Tybalt took a deep breath and nodded.

‘Beatrice leaves the decision to you,’ Capulet continued, ‘and because of my regard for your parents I will make it simple. You have the choice of leaving Verona alone, or of taking Beatrice with you.’

Tybalt was bemused by the apparent simplicity of the choice. ‘I confess that I would take her with me, anywhere—if such a course was acceptable to you,’ he said.

‘You need not concern yourself with my welfare,’ retorted Capulet. ‘Is it acceptable to you? It sounds romantic enough, but have you considered the consequences? Beatrice will lose everything. She has a little money of her own, admittedly, but I am speaking of the important things, her home for the past twenty years, her family and friends. And you can never marry and have children - at least, not legitimate children.’

Tybalt was silent.

‘The remaining alternative is for me to challenge you for impugning my honour. It would be a painful course for both of us, yet it does have the virtue of providing a conclusive answer.’

Tybalt shook his head. ‘I could no more fight you than my father.’

Capulet shrugged. ‘I will have one answer or another.’

’I will do whatever you command.’

‘I cannot command, but I will advise. I respect your love for Beatrice, but you are young enough to survive her loss. You have the best years of your life ahead of you, if not in Verona for the immediate future, then in the greater world outside. I have useful contacts in many cities, even in other countries. My advice is to make a fresh start, alone.’

* * *

‘Tybalt! Your timing is excellent. Mercutio’s soul is still but a few feet above our heads, waiting for you to keep him company.’

Tybalt shook the cobwebs from his brain to see the Montagues—Romeo and Benvolio—barring his way. He was confused, his mind reeling from the terrible options offered by Capulet. He remembered that he had taken the honourable course, but it seemed like a dream from which he might awake at any moment. Was he really about to leave the city he loved? He vaguely remembered leaving the house, impatiently shaking off the ever-attentive Giorgio, because he need to walk while he tried to collect his thoughts. He felt a mild irritation with the Montagues for being so inconsiderate as to accost him when he had such important things on his mind. The sight of Romeo’s face jogged his memory; it was Romeo he had wanted to see when Mercutio had precipitated the fight; he remembered the reason now but it seemed a lifetime ago, and it no longer mattered.

‘Tybalt! Are you deaf, as well as mad?’

The hostility in Romeo’s words came as something of a shock, but his head was still too confused to take offence. ‘I have changed my mind, friend Romeo.’

‘And I. Now there is Mercutio’s ghost to pacify.’

‘Mercutio?’ The memory flooded back, and with it the earlier pain. ‘I am sorry about your friend.’

‘Hypocrite! Meanwhile, his soul awaits. Either you or I, or both, must go with him.’

The rasp of a rapier unsheathed brought Tybalt back to reality, with a shiver down his spine. He sighed. Another duel. Beatrice would be disappointed in him. Perhaps she would understand that while duelling was the last pursuit he wanted at this moment, he could not deny Romeo the opportunity to avenge Mercutio’s death. As her face took over his subconscious his spirits sank with the realisation he might never see her again. It was his last thought before the blade he did not see entered his heart.

Eleven

As Isabella Contini had predicted, the light thrown on the Romeo and Juliet story by her ancestor’s journals, the love affair behind the love affair, provided an answer to the major inconsistencies in Shakespeare’s play. It also justified my own hitherto groundless speculation about Lady Capulet, neglected by her chroniclers.

The journals had brought the characters to life, motivating their actions and adding a new perspective which, while not detracting from the dramatic power of Shakespeare’s account, provided an extra dimension to the drama. I could also understand Aldo Agostini’s indecision, faced with the conflicting interests of the historian and the rewriting of history, and the collector, keeping a priceless find to himself. But it was clear that the journals were too important to remain the property of any one individual. In the circumstances, my promise to Vespucci seemed almost irrelevant, and I would have to persuade Isabella that despite her undoubted claim to ownership, she should consider presenting them to a deserving institutional body.

But Isabella was too excited to respond to matters of conscience, or to worry about my apprehension that her life was in danger. Marguerite’s words still dominated her thoughts; her flushed face and sparkling eyes had the dazed appearance of someone who had just given themselves a ‘fix’. ‘There is so much more,’ she declared, breathlessly, oblivious of my entreaties. ‘Especially about the Capulets. Isn’t it incredible?’

I leaned forward and closed the covers of the journal she had been reading. ‘There is a very real chance you will go the same way as Dr Agostini. If you can’t bring yourself to part with them for good, then at least compromise. Announce that you are offering them on indefinite loan to one of the libraries. That way you get them off the premises while they take care of the insurance; and you can arrange to have access to them at any time.’

As I pleaded, she draped a protective arm over the book, silence registering indignation at my suggestion.

‘Well?’ I insisted.

Eventually she shrugged. ‘Let me think about it.’

The atmosphere had become a little strained, and it was apparent she regretted taking me into her confidence. I wondered what I could say to repair the growing rift, but before the question could be resolved there was a ring at the front doorbell. The spell was broken as we reacted in unison.

As I helped her gather the scattered journals, Maria announced a caller, Signor Vespucci. Isabella did not need to be told to hide the journals, the calm manner was a timely reminder of her resourcefulness. Nor did we need to speak; I knew instinctively that she was a match for anyone.

I should have realised, of course, that the lawyer would not come alone, yet the appearance of his bodyguards, Matteo and Graziani, in the shadows, seemed ominous. As he entered, totally at ease, to greet the Marchesa, they remained on either side of the doorway, unmoving and silent, but making it abundantly clear from their expressions that this was no social visit. Vespucci, however, was at his smoothest, bending low as he kissed Isabella’s hand, and throwing up his hands in mock delight at seeing me.

Isabella’s greeting and his response, equally gushing in their praise of the other’s reputation, were in Italian but I could follow enough to appreciate that they were merely sparring. Then, in answer to my unspoken prayer, they agreed to speak in English for my benefit.

‘Any news?’ Vespucci enquired, beaming at me.

I shook my head.

The lawyer made a clicking noise with his teeth, registering his disappointment. ‘It seems I may beat you to it, after all.’

‘Oh?’ My surprise must have sounded genuine.

He did not answer, turning to Isabella with a half-bow, almost as though he was prepared to touch his forelock. ‘Forgive me, Marchesa, I believe you have what we are looking for.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Isabella looked from him to me in confusion; her act convincing enough for the casual observer, but not for Vespucci.

Courteous as ever he turned to me. ‘My dear Matthew, I hope you do not need to be reminded of your little debt? I kept my side of the bargain.’ He glanced back at Isabella for a moment before appearing to reconsider his tack. ‘Unless…the Marchesa has not told you?’

I was only giving Vespucci half of my attention while the rest of my brain raced to devise a plan to deal with his men, watching me with total concentration. They were professionals, and I could see no way of catching them off guard, with an element of surprise.

‘Could it be that despite your…ex, friendship, she has not been completely frank?’

‘Sorry?’ I retorted, guessing what he meant, but playing for time.

‘Are you aware that the Marchesa visited Dr Agostini on the evening of his murder?’

‘Of course I knew! But I don’t get the connection.’

Vespucci hesitated, unsure that I was speaking the truth. Giving me the benefit of the doubt, he addressed Isabella. ‘What was your business with Agostini?’

Her smile was deliberately patronising. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with you, Mr Vespucci.’

The lawyer flushed. ‘Don’t play games!’ he warned, the edge to his voice suddenly threatening. ‘I know you were after Agostini’s journal!’

‘Agostini’s journal?’ Her tone was mocking, and I feared she might be overstepping the mark. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Vespucci.’

Vespucci took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. ‘I am tired of your airs and graces, Marchesa. Some people might be impressed by the title, but to me you are just another pathetic addict, the dregs of society, no better than the cheapest whore!’

Isabella said nothing, but the barb had struck home. Tempted as I was to intervene, I hesitated. Isabella was no fool, and provoking the lawyer so blatantly was unlikely to have been a mere whim. Then, to my surprise, Vespucci apologised for his outburst. ‘If we put our cards on the table,’ he declared, ‘I am sure we can come to some arrangement.’

‘There is nothing to discuss,’ Isabella replied. ‘I would like you to leave.’

Vespucci looked up at the ceiling, seeking the answer to his mounting irritation. ‘I have tried to behave in a civilised manner.’ He raised a languid hand and snapped his fingers loudly. My gaze switched instinctively to Matteo who had produced a long-bladed knife. ‘Pockface’ sauntered into the room and ran the blade along the back of the flowered silk upholstery of an armchair.

Isabella’s mouth opened in consternation at the gaping incision, but she said nothing.

The tension was rising and I had to say something before it was too late. ‘If he touches the Marchesa with that knife,’ I warned the lawyer, ‘I’ll break his arm.’

Vespucci shrugged. ‘You don’t imagine I enjoy threatening women? All I want is an answer to a simple question.’

He broke off at an unexpected noise, and we all turned towards the doorway where Graziani had collapsed in a heap. The space he had occupied was now filled by Paolo Agostini, his left arm in a sling, and in his right hand the gun with which he had struck the gangster’s neck. The barrel was now pointed unswervingly at Vespucci.

Matteo glared at him, the knife still in his hand but unable to do anything in the face of the threat to his boss. Without looking in his direction, Agostini told him to drop the knife and kick it over. As it moved towards him, Paolo deflected it with his own foot so that it spun into the hall. He called for Maria to remove it, and then turned his attention at last to Isabella. ‘Are you all right?’ When she nodded, his next words were addressed to me. ‘It seems I owe you an apology. I thought you were involved in my father’s murder. Now I know it was Vespucci and his thugs.’

Graziani was beginning to stir, and Paolo instructed the Marchesa to search the gangster’s clothing for a gun. She found it in a shoulder holster and threw it out to Maria who cowered in the hall. Then Matteo and Vespucci were ordered to remove their ties and throw them towards me so that I could bind Graziani’s hands and feet.

As I knotted the ties, instinct warned me that we should call the Questura, but I realised that there were no grounds, apart from possibly criminal damage, at a pinch, on which charges might be pressed, and the showdown would merely be postponed. On the other hand, I could not think of a solution to our current impasse.

Nor, it seemed, could Paolo. ‘I have no option but to kill you,’ he told Vespucci. ‘It should be a fair fight, and I doubt whether you will agree.’

The lawyer smiled. ‘A less than brilliant deduction!’

‘You prefer to have others do your dirty work.’

‘We live in an age of specialisation’ Vespucci conceded.

Paolo was becoming agitated and I feared it could lead to an error of judgement. I kept my eyes on Matteo, ready to block any sudden move.

‘People like you are a cancer which has to be cut away,’ Paolo warned. ‘Even if I have to take a leaf from your book.’

Apart from Matteo who did not understand English and was merely reacting to changes in mood, we had no doubt he was serious, and Vespucci seemed to lose some of his colour. ‘When you burst in like the avenging angel we were on the point of establishing why the lady was paying your father a visit, in great secrecy, on the night he was killed. She is remarkably evasive on the subject.’

‘It was you, not the question, to which I objected,’ Isabella cut in. ‘I told Mr Coll why I went to see Dr Agostini.’

Paolo’s glance switched from me to Isabella, his expression implying surprise that I had been taken into her confidence, but loyalty triumphed. ‘The Marchesa has made it clear, her actions are none of your business!’ he said, the words slurred with venom.

Isabella smiled, again it seemed provocatively, at Vespucci. ‘None of your business,’ she echoed, ‘any more than the question of who else Aldo might have seen on that night.’

Vespucci’s sniff was contemptuous. ‘The time and duration of Matthew’s visit is established, as was yours. Both are corroborated by let us say independent witnesses. There was no one else.’

‘Your witnesses were there the entire evening?’

Vespucci hesitated, undecided whether or not he should allow her to prevaricate any longer, or whether her confidence could be justified. Eventually he addressed Matteo in Italian, ‘an apparently simple question turning into what seemed like an argument involving the recumbent Graziani who had recovered consciousness but was frustrated by his inability to move. I had the impression that the pair of them had been assigned to watching the apartment on some sort of rota basis; that a degree of complacency had set in, because neither could swear to being in the street below without a suspiciously vague number of breaks. The lawyer emerged from the three-sided altercation, angry that he had committed himself on a false premise. ‘Who was this other person?’ he demanded of Isabella, his tone more conciliatory.

‘I had never seen him before.’ Her manner was less provocative, as though she was prepared to meet him halfway.

Vespucci muttered something under his breath, it sounded obscene. I sensed that he believed her, but was furious at his continued inability to get his hands on the missing journal. It was the first time I had seen him lose his cool.

‘This man,’ Paolo interceded, ‘you actually saw someone?’ At her nod, he continued, ‘Did you get the impression he was known to my father?’

Isabella gave the matter a moment’s consideration before nodding again.

‘Can you describe him?’ I asked.

‘After a fashion, I suppose. I wasn’t close enough to see his features, especially as the light was beginning to go, and there was nothing unusual about him. I would say he was Italian, quite tall, dark, he wore a pin-stripe suit, probably grey, and certainly rather flashy. I don’t think he would have been from Aldo’s academic circle.’

For some reason the flimsy description reminded me of Guido Rinaldi. He was not a particularly distinguished person; indeed, if I had to choose his most memorable feature I would select the smile which transformed him, but that was not something Isabella could have seen. However, Vespucci must have been thinking along similar lines because he asked a number of questions which got the answers he expected, and he sighed with satisfaction.

‘If I may be permitted to use your phone, we will have the gentleman here within fifteen minutes,’ he announced. When Isabella gestured him to carry on, he consulted his pocket book and dialled a number. Dispensing with preliminaries, he instructed the person at the other end to get a taxi and come to the Marchesa’s address immediately. It was a one-sided conversation, no less than a command, and he put down the receiver the moment he had finished. I wondered how Rinaldi had reacted, and whether he had anything to hide. I had already decided that he was no killer, but I had not known then about the secret visit.

We stood about in an uneasy silence punctuated by occasional small talk as we waited for Rinaldi’s arrival, and when he was shown into the room by Maria, his face registered the apprehension that must have been mounting on the journey over. His eyes took in Vespucci first, quickly followed by Matteo, Paolo—doing a double take at the gun - then at me with a nervous grin, and finally greeting the Marchesa with a half-bow. Only then did he take in the rest of the room and notice the trussed Graziani, which startled him afresh.

Paolo Agostini had been equally surprised, recognising Rinaldi as the man who had been my companion in the Piazza Bar. ‘Who is this man?’ he demanded.

Vespucci and I exchanged glances. How did one introduce a confidence trickster?

Rinaldi saved us the bother by introducing himself. He spoke in Italian and I caught the word ‘dealer’ which seemed a fair enough description. Then addressing Vespucci he asked in the mildest manner why he had been summoned so arbitarily.

Presumably as a matter of a courtesy towards me, the lawyer answered in English. ‘We wish to know why you visited the professore on the night he died.’

‘The night he was murdered,’ Paolo corrected.

Rinaldi looked horrified, turning to me for support. ‘I know nothing about that!’

I shrugged. ‘I’m inclined to believe that, but we still need to know what you were doing there, and why you never mentioned it before when we discussed his death. After all, the opportunity was there.’

He copied my shrug, but with far greater elegance. ‘The police are no great friends of mine, how do you think they would have reacted? The less I have to do with them the better, thank you very much!’

Paolo gestured angrily with his gun. ‘Your relationship with the police has no bearing on this. Answer the question!’

‘He telephoned: he wanted to talk to me.’

‘Toyou?!’ Paolo’s manner was incredulous.

Rinaldi ignored him, addressing Vespucci and me. ‘He had some very old journals he wanted copied.’

Paolo coughed impatiently. ‘Why?’

‘I did not ask, but I assumed it was in order that the originals, obviously very precious, could be locked away.’

‘What did they look like?’ Vespucci asked.

‘He showed me only one, but I think there were several,’ Rinaldi said. He went on to describe accurately what I had seen. ‘It was a journal or diary written in the style of the 15th or 16th centuries…’

‘By whom?’ the lawyer persisted.

‘I did not recognise the name at the time, and I have since forgotten anyway. You will know why the professore called me. We were more concerned with technicalities than detail, how long it would take, how much it would cost.’

‘Did you reach any conclusion?’ I cut in.

He shook his head. ‘Apart from the scale of the job and its complexity, there was a factor Dr Agostini had not considered. His identity had to be kept secret, which was normally np problem, but he was not prepared to let these journals out of his apartment. As you know, there are three of us, all of whom he knew he could trust to work from there, but this time we needed a calligrapher. We could have found someone, but whether he could be trusted to keep his mouth shut indefinitely was another matter.’

‘So what happened?’ Vespucci demanded.

‘We both agreed to think about it.’

‘And?’

‘And what? I left! He very kindly offered me a drink, but I could see he was preoccupied, and probably not in the mood for socialising, so I made an excuse and left.’

‘You used the word preoccupied,’ I said. ‘Since you are speaking in English, and very well, can I ask you to be more specific. Would you say he was worried, or frightened?’

He pulled a face. ‘How do I know? Not frightened, worried perhaps.’

‘About what?’

Rinaldi laughed, agitatedly. ‘I told you, I do not know. About the journals, I suppose.’

‘We know that,’ I conceded. ‘Did he say anything about asking my advice?’ When he shook his head, I persisted. ‘Did you suggest he should phone me?’

He looked surprised. ‘Why should he phone you? I don’t wish to be rude, but how could you help?’

The reaction persuaded me, more than anything else, that Rinaldi was speaking the truth. Aldo knew how I had handled Matteo at the hotel, and my eagerness to confront Graziani later. To anyone else I was just an antiquarian bookseller, and that included Isabella, at the time. But whether or not she had been telling the truth in claiming it had been her idea, she must have been there when Aldo telephoned me. That suggested that Rinaldi’s visit had been earlier.

But Paolo was not impressed by Rinaldi’s story. ‘You’re lying,’ he insisted, with typical shortsightedness.

Rinaldi crossed his heart. ‘I swear it!’

‘We are forgetting the journals,’ Vespucci interrupted. ‘They remain the only motive for whoever killed your father. Why don’t we search Mr Rinaldi’s apartment?’

Rinaldi nodded. ‘Of course. Please do!’

Paolo seemed unimpressed but nodded.

‘We owe it to your father’s memory to search every possible hiding-place. I am sure the Marchesa would not mind if we started here.’ Vespucci added.

‘I object to being treated like a suspect,’ Isabella asserted.

Vespucci spread his hands. ‘But if you have nothing to hide.’

‘Keep out of this!’ ordered Paolo Agostini. ‘It is my concern. Someone in this room killed my father. From what I know of the Marchesa, it could not have been her. Nor do I think it was Mr Coll; he was an obvious suspect but common sense indicates that he would have been back in England days ago. That leaves you.’ He pointed the gun at Vespucci. ‘I’m sure you have several deaths on your conscience, so what’s one more? And you.’ He stared at Rinaldi. ‘You had the motive, and the opportunity.’ He finally turned to me. ‘Do you agree?’

‘I can only guess who killed your father, but it wasn’t Rinaldi,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I am inclined to agree, there is only one professional killer in this -room, even if he doesn’t actually do it himself.’ He gestured with the gun at Vespucci.

The lawyer tried to maintain his poise, but his voice was unsteady. ‘That would be murder, in cold blood, and before witnesses.’

‘Don’t do it, Paolo!’ I warned. ‘Your father would turn in his grave at the thought of you facing a murder charge.’

As he hesitated, Graziani, ostensibly bound hand and foot, suddenly sprang to life, and with his hands free, dived at the nearest pair of legs. Unable to move the left arm to assist his balance, Paolo staggered, and in trying to use the gun in his other hand as a club, he overbalanced. The rest of us, stunned by the explosion of activity, reacted sluggishly, although it was obvious that we had been foolish to dismiss Graziani as being incapacitated. Cursing the complacency with which I had tied the knots, I was too preoccupied with recrimination to think and act instinctively. Within a split second, Paolo was on the ground, wincing with pain from the recent wounds in his shoulder and left arm. When I did finally react positively I made the mistake of going for his assailant, while Matteo dived for the gun, and got it. As he climbed to his feet he looked to the lawyer for instructions. I also got up; there was no point in trying to hold Graziani hostage.

Vespucci’s nod was a signal for Matteo to take aim, but Isabella screamed with terror and dived across to stand between him and Paolo. ‘Who was talking about murder in cold blood a moment ago?’ she demanded.

The lawyer smiled. ‘The situation was very different.’

‘Then you will have to kill us all!’

He shrugged. ‘Only if it becomes necessary. There must be an alternative. In fact, I am even prepared to leave the decision to you.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You come clean about the journals, and I will pardon lover-boy! We will do it by stages, first question and answer saves his kneecaps.’

She seemed mesmerised by the gun barrel which seemed to align itself with Paolo’s legs. ‘How do I know you won’t shoot him anyway?’

Vespucci pursed his lips. ‘I could say that you have no choice, but I like to be fair. Whatever my failings, I never go back on my word. Now, tell me why you killed the boy’s father?’

Isabella hung her head. ‘It was an accident.’

Vespucci smiled. ‘And tell us how this accident happened.’

She turned to appeal to Paolo. ‘It was! The journals belong to me, to my family. Aldo found out about them years ago, and traced them to a distant aunt of mine. The woman is as poor as a church mouse, and what he offered her must have seemed like a fortune. If I had known, I would have capped the offer, and kept them in the family.’

Paolo had climbed to his feet with some difficulty. Now he slipped a protective arm about her shoulders. ‘My father could be very ruthless,’ he admitted, his voice gentle. ‘Tell us what happened.’

‘Aldo had always denied the existence of Marguerite’s journals, but when he realised that someone else knew about them, I’m not sure if he knew it was Mr Vespucci, he decided he could not keep them secret indefinitely. That was the night he finally took me into his confidence. I was there reading them when I heard him inviting Matthew to help him reach a decision over where they should go. When he was off the phone I pointed out that I had a prior claim, but that I was prepared to discuss it. But he wouldn’t listen, and he would not even let me finish the part I was reading. He tried to take it away, and there was a struggle, only because I was frightened the book would get torn! He wouldn’t let go, so I hit him with the nearest object at hand, that bust of Shakespeare. He fell over, and when he got up he was in a terrible temper. I was terrified. I hit him again, and again, until he stopped moving. I didn’t mean to kill him. If only he…’

‘And where are the journals now?’ Vespucci demanded, pointedly remaining within arm’s reach as she retrieved them. As the volumes appeared, he snatched at the top copy, opening it to satisfy himself that he had his hands on the real thing at last.

As the lawyer studied the journal, I took the opportunity to see how the others were reacting. Nearest to me, Rinaldi was expressionless, looking straight ahead, desperately pretending that what was happening had nothing to do with him. At his side, Paolo had eyes only for Isabella, his face anguished by the new strain between love and loyalty; the journals meant virtually nothing. Graziani and Matteo remained professionally cool, ignoring their boss to concentrate on us, although I had a feeling that Matteo had singled me out as the potential danger. When our eyes met for the third time, I smiled and he responded in kind, but I did not fool myself that his vigilance had been relaxed in any way, and doubted if there was any likelihood of our being able to turn the tables.

The outcome was far from clear. Vespucci would have the journals, of course, and Rinaldi could be trusted to keep his mouth closed, but what would happen with the two far more independant spirits, Isabella and Paolo? Even as I speculated I was conscious of a grunt of pain from Vespucci and looked round to see him staggering away from Isabella who was holding a candlestick.

As Matteo wheeled and raised his gun, Paolo removed his injured arm from the sling and leapt on his back, reaching with his good arm for the outstretched wrist. At the same moment, Graziani rushed at Isabella and twisted the candlestick from her grasp. But she fought back, kicking and scratching, and for a moment he had his hands full.

My priority had to be the gun in Matteo’s hand, and this time I moved instinctively, but while I was in mid-air there was a loud report and I saw Isabella crumple, followed by a string of oaths from Graziani, bleeding from a cut where the bullet had gashed his hand. But Paolo, shocked, had lost interest in restraining Matteo, and by the time I reached him he had recovered sufficiently to point the gun at me. I stopped in my tracks and turned to Vespucci who was still rubbing the bruise on his head, but obviously not seriously hurt. ‘Phone for an ambulance!’ I commanded.

He knelt beside Isabella, felt her pulse and shook his head. He raised his eyes to me and shrugged.

I could not believe she was dead, and unthinkingly challenging Matteo to do anything, I joined the lawyer by Isabella’s side. From her frozen expression, even before checking, I knew he was right. Then I looked at the wound and realised that the bullet had gone straight through her chest.

Graziani was still protesting noisily at his close shave, while Matteo just as heatedly was blaming Paolo for disturbing his aim. They were exchanging insults when Vespucci shut them up, ordering the injured man to look in the bathroom for a bandage. Then he confiscated the gun, and instructed Matteo to take the journals down to the car.

As Matteo gathered up the scattered volumes, I rounded on Paolo who had collapsed into a chair, head cradled in his hands. ‘Pull yourself together,’ I shouted. ‘You’ve got a big mouth but no guts. You’re pathetic!’

The calculated insults seemed to have the right effect because he raised his head to glare at me.

I smiled at him. ‘That’s better!’

With Matteo gone, I confronted Vespucci. ‘With your contacts, I’ve no doubt you can make the Marchesa’s death look like suicide, but shooting me won’t be as simple. I’ve got some influential friends of my own.’

‘I have no intention of harming you, my dear Matthew.’

‘I would like to think so, even though I intend to take that gun away. With those two thugs on the payroll, I don’t suppose you’ve shot anyone in years.’ I walked towards him, and after only a momentary hesitation, he lowered the weapon.

‘Get after Matteo!’ I instructed Paolo who, to my surprise, responded by getting out of the chair, although I would have preferred a note of some urgency.

But it was his turn to smile reassuringly. ‘Matteo is not going anywhere.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I recognised the car when I arrived. I took the precaution of…I don’t know the expression in English, but it will not start.’

I returned his smile. ‘Go after him anyway, he might call a taxi.’

When he had gone I sat Vespucci in a chair and got Rinaldi to tie his hands and ankles with the discarded neckties. ‘When I’ve dealt with Graziani, I’ll go and help Paolo,’ I told Rinaldi. ‘At that stage, I want you to phone the Questura and speak to, or leave a message for, Inspector Barletta. Tell him what has happened.’

‘I thought we had an understanding,’ Vespucci protested. ‘You are still in my debt.’

‘The debt was specific, to hand over the journals if I found them,’ I replied, adding for Rinaldi’s benefit, ‘Is everything clear? I’ll leave you the gun if it makes you feel any better.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t wish to get involved, Mr Coll. It is terrible about the poor Marchesa, but there is nothing we can do for her now, God rest her soul.’

‘Be warned. If Inspector Barletta hasn’t heard from you by the time I speak to him later, you’ll be charged with being an accessory!’

I found Graziani in the bathroom meticulously bandaging his hand. Anxious to get after Matteo, I rebelled at the prospect of wasting further time tying him up. Instead, I ordered him into the bath and ran the taps until he was soaked to the waist; he was not likely to venture into the street until he had got rid of some of that excess water.

In the street, I spotted Vespucci’s abandoned car but there was no sign of Matteo or Paolo, although the turned heads of a number of pedestrians indicated the direction in which they had gone. I broke into a trot and made out Paolo in the distance; his quarry, out of sight, was presumably not far ahead. I had no idea where we were headed, or why Matteo had not hailed a taxi. I guessed it was because Paolo was close behind and he did not want to risk the attention a scuffle would attract if he stopped. True, the chase itself was making heads turn, but that would not matter if he eventually got away, it being reasonable to suppose that the younger man, just out of hospital, would be tiring.

But if that was his reasoning, his calculations were out because Paolo was gaining, the journals tucked under Matteo’s arm being no small encumbrance. What was more worrying was that Paolo would be no match for the gangster if he decided to stand and fight.

Ahead I could see the river, the Adige, and sensed that we had Matteo trapped if only I was there in time to take over from Paolo. Indeed, the distance between us was deceptive. Matteo had reached the bank and turned to head for the nearest bridge, the detour enabling his pursuer to cut him off, and bring him down in a flying tackle that would have done credit to a rugby player. But even as I admired its execution, my heart sank. The impact should have propelled Matteo head-first into the parapet. But just before the bridge, the normally locked gate, leading down steps to the water, was open. In an instant flashback I remembered seeing a municipal employee cleaning obscene graffiti off the wall beside some other steps. Chances were that every other gate was still locked, but Paolo had to be impatient! By the time I had reached the spot, all I could see were two heads bobbing in the water surrounded by a number of the journals opened out and floating face down.

For some incomprehensible reason the two men still appeared to be fighting. I thought about jumping in to separate them but hesitated. Matteo still looked full of fight and it might be advisable to wait until he had lost some of that energy. But then I realised that he was struggling to hold on to Paolo, because he could not swim. I recalled his struggle to get out of Vespucci’s pool into which I had pushed him. I could see now that Paolo was trying to restrain him, promising to pull him to the side of the bank if he would let go, but Matteo was panic-stricken.

It was apparent that Paolo was tiring and in danger of drowning if he could not break Matteo’s hold. It was while I was digesting this information, realising that I no longer had a choice, when a breathless Vespucci arrived at my side, Rinaldi having failed the test of his resolution; not that it mattered now. Nudging at my elbow, he urged me to get into the water.

I shook him off. ’I was just going.’ Reluctantly, I took off my jacket and shoes and handed them to him. ‘No bets for guessing where your priorities lie,’ I remarked, ‘But perhaps you’ll allow me a couple of seconds to prevent a drowning!’

‘You don’t have a couple of seconds. Don’t worry about them, someone is getting a lifebelt.’

Resisting the impulse to hit him, I dived into the river, coming up only a few yards from where I had last seen them, but they had gone under again. It had been my intention to grab Matteo and let Paolo, the swimmer, make his own way to the side, but by the time they surfaced I knew I had to choose between them because Paolo was totally exhausted. It was not a difficult decision. As they broke surface, I forced them apart and, turning Paolo on to his back, I pulled him to the side where several pairs of willing hands lifted him over the parapet. I turned to go back for Matteo but he had disappeared, and I knew there was no point in diving in those dark waters to look for him.

The thin leather bindings of the journals had kept most of them afloat so I swam towards the nearest volume. Treading water, I lifted it above the surface to examine the contents. I was not optimistic, expecting to find that the ink had run on many of the pages, but I was not prepared for the sodden mass that because of its weight threatened to pull free of the binding; I had forgotten that the paper was four hundred years old. Deeply depressed, I swam to another journal floating nearby, and found it much the same. This time a number of pages had retained their resilience which meant the paper might be saved by freeze-drying, but the writing was already disappearing. I tucked it inside my shirt and swam back to where Vespucci waited.

As he and other bystanders pulled me out, I was conscious only of his note of irritation. ‘What about the others?’

I reached inside my shirt and produced the slim volume, handing it to him without comment. I had found and lost my Lady Capulet, but at least I had purged the debt of honour.

Roy Harley Lewis lives in England, where he and his wife run Bookfinders, a specialist service for obtaining out-of-print and rare books. He is the author of The Book Browser’s Quide and Antiquarian Books: An Insider’s Account. Plus, he has also received wide critical acclaim for his previous Matthew Coll mystery novels: A Cracking of Spines, The Manuscript Murders, A Pension for Death, Where Agents Fear to Tread, and Miracles Take a Little Longer.

Jacket by Raquel Jaramillo

St. Martin’s Press

175 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y 10010

A Cracking of Spines

“Lewis’ thriller updates the old body-in-the-library plot with a delicious dash of the macabre.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

The Manuscript Murders

“This is not only a well-plotted mystery but an informative book about Elizabethan literature and printing and the research of contemporary scholars.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“It all adds up to surprise and suspense,- and murder, of course. Roy Harley Lewis has given us a novel that is not only well-written but entertaining as well.”

—South Bend Tribune

“Lewis is a hot writer; he makes the ordinary details of life sensuous and puts together an ably plotted, punch-packed caper.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

Where Agents Fear to Tread

“Franklin is a likable character whose adventures are the stuff of pure fantasy…One hopes Lewis is already at work on a sequel.”

—Publishers Weekly

Miracles Take a Little Longer

“The fourth Matthew Coll mystery is as dexterously plotted and paced as its predecessors. The opening scene, portraying a murder in a library bindery’s drying press, is a masterpiece of claustrophobic terror.”

—Booklist:-«