The English Assassin (33 page)

He watched her now as an admirer—and vaguely, he thought, as a restorer. He had helped her to discover the truth about her father and to come to terms with her family’s past. The damage was still there, he thought, but it was concealed, invisible to the naked eye, like in a perfect restoration.

She executed the treacherous chromatic descent at the end of the first movement. Pausing for a moment, she began the second movement. Mischievous and faster-paced, it was full of demanding string crossings that required her hand to move repeatedly from the first position to the fifth and from the E string to the G. Eighteen minutes later, when the third movement dissolved into a final arpeggiated G-minor chord, the audience exploded into applause.

Anna lowered the violin and drew several deep breaths. Only then did she open her eyes. She acknowledged the applause with a slight bow. If she ever looked at Gabriel, he did not know it, because by then he had turned his back to her and was scanning the room, looking for a man with a gun.

VENICE

A
STEADY RAIN
was falling on the Campo San Rocco. The miserable weather did nothing to dampen the spirits of the large crowd that lingered there after the recital, hoping for one last glimpse of Anna Rolfe. The atmosphere was electrically charged. After performing “The Devil’s Trill,” Anna had been joined onstage by her longtime accompanist, Nadine Rosenberg, for Brahms’s
Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano in D Minor
and Pablo Sarasate’s
Zigeunerweisen.
The evening’s final piece, Paganini’s demonic solo
Caprice No. 24,
had brought the audience to its feet.

Anna Rolfe was unaware of the crowd outside. At that moment she was standing in the gallery behind the stage with Zaccaria Cordoni and Fiona Richardson. Fiona was conducting an animated conversation in German on her mobile telephone. Anna was smoking a much-deserved Gitane, trying to come down off the high of the performance. She was still holding the
violin. The old Guarneri had been good to her tonight. She wanted it near her a little longer.

Gabriel was standing a few feet away, watching her carefully. Anna caught his eye briefly and smiled. She mouthed the words
thank you
and discreetly blew him a kiss. Fiona ended her conversation and slipped the telephone into her pocketbook.

“Word travels fast, my dear. You’re going to have a busy winter. Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, and Berlin. And that’s just the first week.”

“I’m not sure I’m really ready to get back on the merry-go-round again, Fiona.”

Zaccaria Cordoni laid a hand on her shoulder. “If I may be presumptuous, you are definitely ready. Your performance tonight was inspired. You played like a woman possessed.”

“Maybe I am possessed,” she said mischievously.

Fiona smiled and glanced toward Gabriel. “You want to tell us about your mysterious Frenchman—the handsome Monsieur Dumont?”

“Actually, what I’d like to do is spend a few minutes alone.”

She walked across the room and took Gabriel’s hand. Fiona and Cordoni watched them walk down the corridor to the dressing room. Fiona frowned.

“Whoever Monsieur Dumont is, I hope he doesn’t break her heart like the others. She’s like fine crystal: beautiful but easily broken. And if that bastard breaks her, I’ll kill him.”

A
NNA
closed the door of her dressing room and collapsed into Gabriel’s arms.

“You were amazing tonight.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I just watched over you to make sure nothing happened. You’re the one who made magic.”

“I wish we could celebrate.”

“You’re getting on a plane out of here. And I have a job to do.”

“Was he here tonight?”

“The assassin?”

She nodded, her head pressed against his chest.

“I don’t know, Anna.”

She sat down, suddenly exhausted. On the coffee table in front of her was the case for the Guarneri. She undid the latches and lifted the lid. Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded in half, with
Anna
written on it.

She looked up at Gabriel. “Did you leave this for me?”

“Leave what?”

“This note in my violin case. It wasn’t here when I left the room to go onstage.”

She reached into the case and picked it up. When she did, an object slipped out. It was a narrow length of leather, and hanging from the end of it was a piece of red coral, shaped like a hand.

G
ABRIEL
reached into the case and removed the pendant, his heart pounding against his ribs. “What does the note say?”

“ ‘You need this more than I do. Tell Gabriel he owes me one. With compliments.’ ”

Drawing his Beretta, he opened the door to the dressing room and looked out. Zaccaria Cordoni spotted him and hurried down the corridor to see what was the matter. Gabriel slipped the Beretta back into his pocket.

“Where’s the man who was outside this door before the recital?”

“What man?”

“The security guard in the burgundy-colored jacket. Where is he now?”

“I have no idea. Why?”

“Because someone came into this room while Anna was onstage.”

“Was any harm done?”

“He left a note.” Gabriel held up the coral charm. “And this.”

“May I see that?”

Gabriel handed the necklace to Cordoni, who turned it over in his hand and smiled.

“You know what that is?”

“Yes, I think I do. It’s harmless.”

“What is it?”

“A long time ago, we Cordonis used to be Corsicans. My great-grandfather came to Italy and started the Venetian branch of the family, but I still have distant relatives living in a valley on the southern end of the island.”

“What does that have to do with the pendant?”

“It’s a talisman, a Corsican good-luck charm. Corsican men wear them. They believe it wards off the evil eye—the
occhju,
as Corsicans refer to it.” Cordoni handed it back to Gabriel. “Like I said, it’s harmless. Someone was just giving Miss Rolfe a gift.”

“I wish it was that simple.” Gabriel slipped the talisman into his pocket next to the Beretta, then looked at Cordoni. “Where’s the man who was standing outside this door?”

T
HE
Englishman spotted the water taxi bobbing in the Rio di San Polo beneath the shelter of a footbridge. Rossetti’s man sat behind the wheel wearing a hooded
anorak. The Englishman boarded the taxi and ducked into the cabin.

Rossetti’s man opened the throttle. The boat grumbled and shuddered, then got under way. A moment later, they were cruising along the Grand Canal at speed. The Englishman rubbed a clear spot in the condensation and looked out at the passing scenery for a few moments. Then he drew the curtains.

He pulled off the black quilted jacket, then removed the burgundy blazer and rolled it into a ball. Ten minutes later, he opened the cabin window and cast the blazer upon the black water of the lagoon.

He stretched out on the bench seat, thinking of the story he would concoct for Anton Orsati. He reached up to his throat for his talisman. He felt naked without it. In the morning, when he was back on Corsica, he would visit the old
signadora
and she would give him a new one.

ZURICH

G
ERHARDT
P
ETERSON
’
S OFFICE
was in darkness except for the small halogen lamp that cast a disk of light over his desk. He had stayed late because he had been expecting a telephone call. He was not sure who would place the call—perhaps the Venice municipal police; perhaps the
carabiniere
—but he had been quite certain it would come.
Sorry to bother you so late, Herr Peterson, but I’m afraid there’s been a terrible tragedy in Venice tonight concerning the violinist Anna Rolfe. . . .

Peterson looked up from his files. Across the room, a television flickered silently. The late national newscast was nearly over. The important stories from Bern and Zurich had been covered, and the program had deteriorated into the mindless features and lighter fare that Peterson usually ignored. Tonight, though, he turned up the volume. As expected, there was a story about Anna Rolfe’s triumphant return to the stage that evening in Venice.

When it was over, Peterson switched off the television and locked his files away in his personal safe. Perhaps Anton Orsati’s assassin had been unable to carry out his assignment because Anna Rolfe was too heavily protected. Perhaps he’d gotten cold feet. Or perhaps they were dead and the bodies simply hadn’t been discovered yet. His instincts told him that this was not the case; that something had gone wrong in Venice. In the morning, he would contact Orsati through the usual channels and find out what had happened.

He slipped some papers into his briefcase, extinguished the desk lamp, and went out. Peterson’s seniority permitted him to park his Mercedes in the cobblestone courtyard instead of the distant staff lot adjacent to the rail yard. He had instructed the security staff to keep a special watch on his car. He had not told them why.

He drove south along the Sihl River. The streets were nearly deserted: here a lone taxi; here a trio of guest workers waiting for a streetcar to take them back to their crowded flats in Aussersihl or the Industrie-Quartier. It was the responsibility of Peterson’s staff to make certain they didn’t make trouble there. No plots against the despot back home. No protests against the Swiss government. Just do your job, collect your check, and keep your mouth shut. Peterson considered the guest workers a necessary evil. The economy couldn’t survive without them, but it sometimes seemed the Swiss were outnumbered in Zurich by the damned Portuguese and Pakistanis.

He glanced again into his rearview mirror. It seemed he was not being tailed, though he could not be certain. He knew how to follow a man, but his training in
the detection and evasion of surveillance had been rudimentary.

He drove through the streets of Wiedikon for twenty minutes, then over to the Zürichsee to the garage of his apartment house. After passing through the metal security gate, he waited just on the other side to make certain no one came after him on foot. Down the twisting passage he drove to his reserved parking space. His flat number, 6C, was stenciled onto the wall. He pulled into the space and shut down the lights, then the motor. And there he sat for a long moment, hands choking the wheel, heart beating a little too quickly for a man of his age. A very large drink was in order.

He walked slowly across the garage, suddenly bone-weary. He passed through a doorway and entered the vestibule where a lift would carry him up to his flat. Standing before the closed stainless-steel doors, head craning to watch the progress of the glowing floor numbers, was a woman.

She pressed the call button several times and cursed loudly. Then, taking note of Peterson’s presence, she turned and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been waiting for the damned lift for five minutes. I think there must be something wrong with the fucking thing.”

Perfect
Züridütsch,
thought Peterson. She was no foreigner. Peterson quickly assessed her with his practiced eye. She was dark-haired and pale-skinned, a combination that he had always found terribly attractive. She wore a pair of blue jeans that accentuated her long legs. Beneath her leather jacket was a black blouse, unbuttoned just enough to reveal the lace of her brassiere. Attractive, fine-boned, but not the kind of beauty that would turn heads on the
Bahnhofstrasse. Young but not inappropriately so. Early thirties. Thirty-five at the outside.

She seemed to sense Peterson’s careful appraisal, because she held his gaze with a pair of mischievous gray eyes. It had been six months since his last affair, and it was time for another. His last mistress had been the wife of a distant colleague, a man from the fraud division. Peterson had managed it well. It had been rewarding and pleasant for a time, and when it was time for it to end, it dissolved without rancor or remorse.

He managed a smile in spite of his fatigue. “I’m sure it’ll be along in a moment.”

“I don’t think so. I think we’re going to be trapped here all night.”

The suggestiveness of her remark could not be missed. Peterson decided to play along to see how far it would go. “Do you live in this building?”

“Boyfriend.”

“Surely your boyfriend will send help eventually, don’t you think?”

“He’s in Geneva tonight. I’m just staying at his flat.”

He wondered who her boyfriend was and which flat she was staying in. He allowed himself to picture a brief and all-too-hurried sexual encounter. Then his fatigue crept up on him and chased away all thoughts of conquest. This time it was Peterson who pressed the call button and Peterson who muttered a curse.

“It’s never going to come.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. Removing one, she placed it between her lips and flicked her lighter. When no flame appeared, she flicked it several more times, then said, “Shit. I guess this isn’t my night.”