A Deadly Paradise Read online

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  A Deadly Paradise

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  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  The Last Enemy

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  A Deadly Paradise

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  GRACE BROPHY

  Copyright © 2008 by Grace Brophy

  All rights reserved.

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brophy, Grace, 1941–

  A deadly paradise / Grace Brophy.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-56947-491-4 (hardcover)

  1. Diplomats—Crimes against—Fiction.

  2. Police—Italy—Fiction. 3. Bank notes—Forgeries—Fiction.

  4. World War, 1939-1945—Italy—Venice—Fiction.

  5. Umbria (Italy)—Fiction. I. Title.

  S3602.R6463D43 2008

  13’.6—dc22

  2007041137

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Miguel

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  Author’s Note

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  DURING WORLD WAR II, near-perfect forgeries of Bank of England pound notes were produced by prisoners in a German concentration camp, an event now referred to as Operation Bernhard. Hitler’s intention was to ruin the British economy by flooding the financial markets with the counterfeit notes. One of the subplots in this novel is based on this event. I should note, however, that all characters, living and dead, are wholly imaginary and that all other events and many of the institutions and place names, including the German Cultural Institute and the town of Paradiso, are fictional.

  Her lips were red, her looks were free,

  Her locks were yellow as gold:

  Her skin was as white as leprosy,

  The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,

  Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

  THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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  Contents

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  PROLOGUE

  Venice 1945

  BOOK ONE

  Paradise Lost

  BOOK TWO

  The Sparrow and the Peacock

  BOOK THREE

  Venice 2007

  BOOK FOUR

  Speak me fair in death

  BOOK FIVE

  Paradise Regained

  EPILOGUE

  Flotilla for a Queen

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  PROLOGUE

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  Venice 1945

  THE BOATMAN REMOVED the cigarette from his shirt pocket. Tomorrow was his day off, and he sighed with anticipation as he unrolled the cigarette from its greasy brown wrapper and passed it under his nose, inhaling deeply. He’d smoke half of it with a grappa in the café and the other half later in the evening, in front of the fire. He thought with satisfaction of the pile of driftwood that he had collected during his delivery rounds. Anna would be pleased, and when she was pleased she didn’t complain if he shared a drink and a smoke with his mates. There was no shortage of grappa in wartime Venice. He sighed again and gathered his wool vest closer to his chest. The rain had started falling three days ago, the beginning of acqua alta, and the damp penetrated everything, even the newspapers that lined his shoes.

  Only one person was on the esplanade, a schoolgirl in uniform. She stood some twenty feet from him, in full view of his barge, sheltering from the rain beneath the archway that separates the Cannaregio canal from the Ghetto. She lighted a cigarette, and he watched with desire as wisps of smoke drifted out toward the canal and mingled with the mist. Perhaps he would ask her for a cigarette. Foreigners were more generous than Venetians, and he often bummed cigarettes from them. But this schoolgirl was no ordinary foreigner, and he decided against it.

  She was scantily dressed, just a light jacket thrown over her dark blue school uniform, and he wondered again why she was lurking there. She didn’t live in the Ghetto, not among the Jews. And the Germans didn’t employ schoolgirls as spies when they had so many willing Venetians to act for them. He knew for sure she was German. He’d seen her many times before, when the convent school at the end of the canal let out for the day. She had fat yellow pigtails, wore an iron leg brace, and always followed behind the other girls, dragging her left leg at an awkward angle. At first, his natural kindness had colored his feelings and he’d felt sorry for her. But later, he heard her speaking in rapid-fire German to one of the nuns who accompanied the girls, and he had withdrawn his sympathy. She could go to hell with the rest of them.

  He spat into the canal, consigning the crippled fräulein to her misery. She had nothing to do with him. One more load and he was finished for the day. He started the engine, waiting for its black smoke to foul the air, and then quickly turned it off again when he heard the warning blare of a police foghorn in the distance. He held his breath, waiting for the wake of the larger boat to push his barge against the pilings; but instead of the police proceeding up the canal, they docked directly across from him, in front of the Palazzo Molin. Four men exited the launch after it was secured, two in German uniform and two in plain clothes. The launch bobbled and rocked against the moss-covered steps, and one of the men slipped and almost fell. He let out a loud oath and the others laughed. A shutter was thrown open on the second floor of the palazzo, and an orange light sent a vaporous glow across the murky waters.

  He spat again into the canal and watched as the men banged vigorously on the iron gates enclosing the palazzo. No one answered, and the men banged again, shouting loudly this time for someone to open up. Finally, a woman unlocked the gates and let the Germans inside. The wait for them to return seemed interminable to the boatman, and he thought longingly of the cigarette in his shirt pocket. But, in truth, the wait was shorter than he imagined—five minutes, no more, until the men returned, with a fifth man in lockstep between them. The fading afternoon light threw deep shadows across the water, but even in the shadows he recognized the fifth man. The boatman often delivered household items to the palazzo, and its owner, Count Molin, had once helped him pull a heavy crate onto the dock. But even without this personal encounter, the boatman would have known the count anywhere. He was tall, even for a northerner, and he dwarfed the Germans who assisted him into the launch.

  The schoolgirl, who had stayed out of sight while the drama unfolded, waited until the launch had pulled away before she emerged from the depths of the archway. She approached the canal and stared across at the palazzo, standing so close to the edge that the boatman feared she might lose her footing. The iron brace would drag her to the bottom of the canal. He coughed discreetly in warning. But she ignored him and continued to peer intently at the palazzo. The falling darkness amplified the sounds of water lapping against cement, and a piercing cry from inside the palazzo drifted across the water. What the girl did next puzzled the boatman, so much so that he spoke of it incessantly to Anna until she stopped listening, then later to total strangers. The girl bent her right knee as though curtsying to a queen, turned, and headed toward the Strada Nova.

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  A Deadly Paradise

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  Book One

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  Paradise Lost

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  1

  LORENZO WAS SURE he’d heard a soft mew coming from the garden next door. Normally he could see Tommaso quite clearly even when he was trying to hide. He was black as midnight and large even for an unaltered tomcat. The veterinarian said he was overfed and then, of course, he’d slip Tommaso treats whenever he passed him in the street. Lorenzo didn’t usually worry when Tommaso was missing for a day, but since la tedesca had moved next door, he was keeping a
close watch on him. The German had a flirtatious little female, and Tommaso had gone after her more than once.

  He climbed the stone wall that separated the properties and caught his foot in one of the vines that sprawled exuberantly over his neighbor’s garden. “Disgusting! It’s a wonder every cat in town hasn’t moved in,” he muttered to himself as he untangled the vine to release his foot. “Tom-maso, vieni qui,” he called softly, spreading the foot-high weeds apart as he moved through the garden. He heard another mew, softer and more plaintive, and he knew that Tommaso was in trouble. What’s the little devil up to now, he thought, as he searched frantically under a pile of dead leaves. That’s when he saw the hole in the basement window, just big enough for a gutter rat to crawl through; but Tommaso, the magician, had gotten himself into even smaller spaces in the past.

  If he knocked on the German’s door and told her that Tommaso was in her basement, she’d make a huge fuss, maybe call the carabinieri again. Lorenzo had played in that basement many times as a child and knew that once Tommaso went through the window, he had no way of getting back out. He tried to peer in, but the window was encrusted with dirt. “Tommaso,” he called again, and was rewarded with another plaintive mew. Nothing for it, Lorenzo decided, reaching through the hole in the window to unhook the latch. He hadn’t seen the German or her car that afternoon; he would be safe.

  The window frame, which was stiff from grime and disuse, cracked loudly as he pushed it inward. He hesitated a moment, holding his breath, but, hearing no thunderbolts in German, he climbed through, dropping four feet to the basement floor. “Bad cat,” he whispered as soon as Tomasso began circling his feet and pushing up against his legs. “Andiamo a casa,” he said, tenderly lifting the black cat onto his shoulder. Then he shuddered in disgust. Tom-maso was covered in blood.

  2

  QUESTORE CARLO TOGNI, commander of the Perugia Questura, knew himself to be an even-tempered man, but sometimes his favorite commissario would try the patience of a saint. Alessandro Cenni was staring off into space, not listening to a word Togni was saying.

  “Did you hear me, Alex? It’s your chance to redeem yourself. If all goes well, I can bring you back to Perugia with a promotion. What do you say to vice questore?”

  “I don’t think being a vice questore would suit my temperament,” Cenni replied, smiling wickedly, “particularly now, just when I’m beginning to like Foligno. Fewer politics and more police work.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! And don’t try my patience, Alex. I’ll put you in for vice questore, and you’ll take it and be happy!” Why he indulged Alex Cenni was beyond him, but his talent helped. Cenni was the best he’d ever worked with—none better, he’d often tell his wife, Romina, when no one else was around. Until Cenni’s transfer from Perugia to Foligno two years ago, the Perugia Questura had had the best arrest record in Italy. It was also one of the best run, and for that Carlo had Alex to thank. He leaned over the desk and dropped his voice. “Listen, Alex, a success here would all but guarantee me a transfer to Rome and you a promotion.”

  Alex laughed out loud. “I surrender. Whatever you say, capo. Besides, I’m bored! Beyond the pickpockets and the family feuds, Foligno is amazingly dull these days. This recession seems to have everyone in the dumps; even the crooks are conserving their energy. Dimmi!”

  “It’s what I already told you while you were gazing out the window!” Carlo snapped. “A German diplomat was murdered in the village of Paradiso. They found her body yesterday in the wine cellar. It’s worse than murder!” He dropped his voice. “Mutilated! And that’s between us, Alex, at least until the press gets hold of it, which may have already happened. I saw that clown from La Repub-blica downstairs when I parked my car. You know the one I mean. You’d better not be the one responsible for him hanging around,” he added ungraciously.

  Cenni laughed again, still in good humor. “No problem, capo. If this murder is so hush-hush, why me? I’m persona non grata!”

  The questore ignored the sarcasm. “You speak German; you’re my best detective!” He tacked the last bit on with a generous smile and waited for the thank-you, but Cenni stared back without changing expression.

  “How many times have I told you not to call me capo!” he snapped. “You know, Alex, things are very different in Rome these days, with the left back in power. The PM is anxious to get on the good side of the Germans. He’ll show his appreciation if this murder is solved quickly—and quietly! It’s your chance to have the Casati fiasco wiped off your record.”

  “Careful, Carlo. You’re treading on one of my favorite memories. I’d do the same again.” Cenni had arrested the fiancée of a senator (a very rich senator) against Carlo’s specific orders. The charge of murder hadn’t stuck; the senator had had far too many strings he could pull. And for his troubles, Cenni had been sent to Foligno, where he’d been rotting for the last two years. Of course he wanted to return to Perugia, Umbria’s capital city and his hometown; but why give the power brokers the satisfaction of seeing him eat crow?

  As much as he protested to the contrary, Togni was a paid-up member of that club. He’d cook his wife in Sunday’s meat sauce if it would guarantee him a promotion, Alex thought with some regret. He liked Romina Togni.

  The questore winced, almost as though he’d been reading Cenni’s thoughts. “I know you’d do the same again, Alex. Don’t remind me! You’re too damned independent for your own good. Perhaps you should reflect that not all of us have Cenni Chocolates to back us up. Some of us need our jobs.”

  Alex hooted in genuine delight. “Good Lord, Carlo, Romina’s family has far more money than mine. You two live like the Medici!”

  Carlo smiled serenely. “True, but it’s not my money,” he said piously. “Besides, my bank balance has nothing to do with this discussion. Just do yourself a favor, Alex: cooperate on this one. The security officer from the German Embassy is outside. I’ll send him in.” Just before he reached the door, he turned and bestowed on Cenni one of his full-wattage smiles. “Be nice, Alex,” he pleaded. “I want this promotion.”

  ALEX STOOD AT the questore’s window looking down at his car below. He had parked it between the guard’s shed and the fence, his permanently assigned space until two year’s ago, soon to be his again. It would be good to return to Perugia, although in the two years since he’d left, his two most reliable inspectors had married and one of them had moved on. Piero was now in Assisi: Commissario Piero Tonni! Elena Ottaviani, Piero’s wife, was still in Perugia but currently on medical leave, recovering from a gunshot wound.

  When Carlo had first mentioned vice questore, Alex had perked up. I guess I’m not that different, he conceded to himself, secretly amused at his own vanity. We Italians love our titles. But now he wasn’t certain that he should accept. If he agreed, the opportunity to do nuts-and-bolts policing would quickly disappear. Administration and politics would take over and his chances of ever finding Chiara’s killers would be lost. The higher up he went, the fewer possibilities there were of dealing with those who might help him—pimps, prostitutes, petty thieves, most of whom knew each other by reputation, if not by name. Someone knew something. Chiara had been kidnapped in Perugia, in mid-afternoon, in front of her parents’ home on Via Maestà delle Volte, twenty years earlier. Eventually someone would talk, and Alex wanted to be around when it happened, even if he had to wait for a deathbed confession.

  He knew that the world at large viewed his long search for Chiara’s kidnappers as an obsession, and perhaps it was. Genine had finally walked out on him three months earlier, to study police procedures in Munich. “I can’t wait any longer, Alex. You say you love me, but when we’re together you’re thinking about Chiara. You’re in love with a ghost! I just happen to look like her.” When he’d protested, Genine had marched over to his nightstand and removed Chiara’s picture from the top drawer. “Hiding it doesn’t help, Alex. Look at us!” she said, holding the picture up close to her face. “Blondes, with blue eyes—we even hav
e the same shape of mouth, although è vero I’m better looking,” she said immodestly. “Not that it helps,” she added tartly. “Every woman you fall for looks like Chiara. A year ago it was that Croatian iceberg. Now it’s me.”

  He had protested again, and Genine listened quietly to his denials. Later that same evening they made love, but it was perfunctory and unsatisfying. At three in the morning he awoke to a noise and heard her moving around in the bathroom. He knew she was crying, but he stayed where he was, staring into the darkness. How could he help Genine when he couldn’t help himself? Days later, she’d told him about the Munich assignment. He’d tried to talk her out of it, but half-heartedly. If she stayed, he’d have to relinquish his obsession. He wasn’t ready.

  The sight of a large tomcat jumping on the hood of his just-washed car rescued him from his thoughts. He knocked loudly on the windowpane until the cat looked up. It yawned, jumped again, this time onto the roof, curled its body into a tight ball, and settled in for a nap. Alex was amused, at the cat’s disdain as well as at his own need to keep his car clean. The sun was shining directly onto the roof; on a sunny spring day it was the ideal spot for a snooze. Rachel, his own cat, would have done the same, and Alex would have been sorely put out if anyone had tried to stop her.

  3

  “DOTTOR CENNI, MI sensi di averla fatta aspettare.” The words of apology for keeping him waiting were in Italian, but the accent was decidedly German. Alex turned from the window to greet Dieter Reimann, the German security officer, and wondered, irritably, how long he had been in the room observing him; he hadn’t heard the door open or close. Dieter Reimann was a small, spare man with an unusually large head, made even more noticeable by the wisps of gray hair combed across his balding pate. Getting along in years, sixty at least, Cenni observed, and dressed like a tourist on his first trip to Italy. He looks damned silly wearing those galoshes and carrying that oversized umbrella, Cenni concluded, mainly to relieve his irritation.