“Do you have a boat hook on board?”
It was a retractable model, four meters in length when fully extended, with a scratch-resistant plastic hook. Gabriel probed the waters off the starboard side of the vessel until he made contact with something heavy and sodden. After several failed attempts, he managed to snare the object and guide it gently toward the surface. The pilot fumbled for the handset of his radio as a human corpse, bloated and partially decomposed, floated into view.
“Don’t,” said Gabriel as he drew the phone from his pocket. “I’ll take care of everything.”
3
San Zaccaria
The regional headquarters of the Arma dei Carabinieri, one of Italy’s two national police forces, were located in the Campo San Zaccaria. Capitano Luca Rossetti was attached to the Division for the Defense of Cultural Patrimony, better known as the Art Squad. Gabriel occasionally served as a consultant to the unit and had worked with Rossetti on a major international forgery investigation. Despite a regrettable case of mistaken identity in a darkenedcortein San Polo—one that left Rossetti with a broken jaw and Gabriel with several fractured bones in his right hand—they remained the best of friends.
“Where?” asked the Italian policeman.
“Walk through thesotoportego. You can’t miss me.”
Rossetti hurried downstairs to thecampoand, phone in hand, sprinted through the passageway that led to the Riva degli Schiavoni, the monumental waterfront promenade stretching along the Grand Canal. There were the usual tourists and vendors, but Rossetti saw no evidence of a dead body.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see you.”
“I’m in the water taxi about a hundred meters due west of Maggiore.”
Rossetti spotted the vessel at once. Gabriel was hanging over the starboard side, a phone in one hand, a rescue pole in the other.
“Whatever you do,” said Rossetti, “don’t let it go.”
Because this was Venice, the Carabinieri maintained a substantial fleet of vessels, the first of which arrived just three minutes after Gabriel’s call. Five more craft appeared soon after, along with waterborne units of the Polizia di Stato, the Guardia di Finanza, and even the Coast Guard. The armada quickly established a blockade around the crime scene, temporarily halting traffic on both the Grand and Giudecca Canals. Gabriel grimly maintained control of the corpse for several more minutes before surrendering it to a pair of Carabinieri crime scene technicians. As they hauled the body into a flat-bottomed pontoon boat, the pilot of the water taxi turned away and was violently sick over the port gunwale.
“Shall I take us back to the basilica?” asked Gabriel.
“It’s against regulations.”
“I think they’ll make an exception in this case.”
Gabriel started the taxi’s engines and crept forward, breaching the blockade between two of the police craft. The traffic on the Grand Canal was at a standstill. He guided the taxi past motionless barges and vaporetti and slid into an empty spot along the quay.
“Are you feeling any better?” he asked the pilot.
“A little. But I’m not sure I’ll ever forget what I saw this morning.”
Neither would Gabriel. He had once discovered the body of a notorious Italian tomb raider in a vat of acid. This was worse.
He stepped onto the quay and headed up the steps of the basilica. The nave was teeming with tourists, seemingly unaware of the commotion outside. Gabriel was glad of their company. He climbed the scaffolding to his work platform and switched on the halogen lamps, flooding the Titian with dazzling white light.
“Sorry for the delay, Signore Vecellio,” he said quietly as heprepared his first swab. “But you’ll never guess what I just discovered in the Canal Grande.”
***
The doors of the basilica closed promptly at noon, and a heavy silence fell over the nave. Gabriel worked without a break until half past one, when he received a call from Luca Rossetti.
“We need a statement.”
“On what particular subject?”
“This morning’s discovery. The lead detective would like you to drop by thestazione.”
“I’m sure he would, but I’m rather busy at the moment.”
“In that case, we’ll come to you.”
