The Lying Tongue (33 page)

T
he plane lurched to the left, tipping through the sky as we made our descent into Venice. I looked out of the window, but all I could see was an expanse of cloud. I remembered the first time I had made this journey, running onto the plane bound for Venice in a bid to escape my past. I had thought that by starting afresh, in another country, I would be able to forget about everything that had happened to me. I would lose myself in writing and escape into a magical, imaginary world. Little did I realize then that the book I would ultimately write would be rather different from the one I had intended. But don’t they say that all the best writers always create something that, despite their careful planning and preparation, ultimately develops a life of its own?

I was ready to present Crace with the truth. I would lay out all the evidence in front of him. I couldn’t see how he could possibly argue with me. I would tell him everything I knew about his past, all the details about his inspiration for
The Debating Society,
how he had abused those boys at Winterborne Abbey and how he had taken Chris’s life—both literally and figuratively. I would present the facts clinically, objectively, without passing judgment, but make him realize that things could not carry on as they were. Obviously I knew he wouldn’t want me to go to the police, but I was sure there was an arrangement we could come to that would be mutually beneficial.

I would tell him that I was going to write his biography, authorized by him, and in return for his cooperation I might consider erasing certain “facts” from his history, elements of his story that, if made public, would no doubt ruin him, if not land him in jail. Exactly which parts of his biography I glossed over and which ones I concentrated on was open to discussion. If he refused to cooperate, I was armed with enough material to write an unauthorized account of his life, over which he would have no control whatsoever. Of course, after his death all such verbal agreements would be null and void and I would be free to tell the story. I wondered what had happened to the manuscript copies of
The Music Teacher
that Chris said he had seen; perhaps Crace still had the novel in his possession.

I stepped out of the airport, feeling a light dust of fine drizzle on my face. As I waited by the
motoscafi
stop for the boat into Venice, together with a group of businessmen, a young couple and a smartly dressed elderly Venetian man, I had a sense that I was moving toward a future that had already been prescribed for me. I remembered that as a child I always had a sense that I was different, special somehow. I knew that one day I would make my mark. I suppose it was only a matter of time now before I would attract the kind of attention I always thought I had deserved but that had so far eluded me.

Fog had settled over the lagoon, and as we traveled through the water, it was hard to make out anything beyond the mist. But, like Crace, I had a mental image of Venice that had become a substitute for the real thing; I no longer needed to see the actual squares, bridges and canals. And as Crace said, it was best to leave the reality of the city to the unfortunates who could only see with their eyes and not their imagination.

In the middle of the lagoon, I took from my rucksack the plastic bag I had placed over Lavinia’s head. Inside was the rock I had used to kill her. I tied the ends of the bag into a secure knot and, making sure nobody was watching me, surreptitiously dropped it over the edge of the boat. As it sank, I felt a reassuring sense of satisfaction, of completeness. Lavinia was out of the way now and I would never have to think of her again.

As the launch approached the Arsenale, the fog was so thick that it was difficult to distinguish between the land and the water. I was the only person to disembark, as all the other passengers had opted for the San Marco stop. I stood on the Riva and listened as the engines of the boat faded away into the mist, the sound of bells tolling somewhere in the distance. I turned up the collar of my jacket and started to walk along the promenade, which seemed deserted, empty except for the occasional stray pigeon from St. Mark’s, until the fog finally released a couple of other figures from its grip. I considered getting my guidebook out of my bag to study the map, but I couldn’t bear to see the form of that question mark staring back at me again, so I continued in the direction of St. Mark’s. I knew, obviously, that at some point I would have to take a right turn down one of the alleys that led toward Castello. I picked one at random and followed its trail, through a campo and over a bridge by a side canal. The water seemed to be whispering to me, imparting some coded message that I failed to understand. At points I could only see three or four feet in front of me and, as the fog seemed to suffocate any sound surrounding it, I was surprised when I saw someone emerge out of the dense, opaque cloud. It was as if residents and visitors alike had been reduced to ghosts, destined to walk around the watery city for an eternity.

I crossed another smaller bridge and took a street that I was convinced would lead me to the back of San Zaccaria, from where I was confident I could find my way to Crace’s palazzo with ease. As I neared the end of the narrow alley, I began to feel the hairs on the back of my neck prick with fear. I heard the noise of a fluttering pigeon hovering above me but could not see it. I reached out into the mist but felt nothing but the damp air. I thought I heard breathing behind me, but when I turned around, no one was there. Finally, as I neared the end of the alley, I saw that there was nothing ahead of me but a brick wall, its surface mottled with moss. I had walked down a dead end. I traced my steps back up to the little bridge and down another street that did eventually bring me to the back of San Zaccaria. By the time I approached Santa Maria Formosa, the mist had started to clear a little.

Outside the palazzo, I took the key from my pocket and walked over the bridge that separated the house from the rest of the city. The dragon carved into the marble gate looked at me as if passing judgment. I turned the key in the lock and pushed open the heavy door. Wisps of fog snaked their way around the courtyard, eel-like in their movements. I called out Crace’s name, but there was no answer. I walked up the staircase, the latticework of the metal banister cold to the touch, and unlocked the door that led into the portego. I shouted for Crace again; again there was no response, and I assumed he was sleeping. It was dark inside the palazzo, so I turned on some of the lights in the grand hall.

As soon as I saw one of the frames lying face down on the floor, surrounded by splinters of glass, I knew there was something wrong. I ran to the side of the hall, feeling the glass crunch under my feet, and bent down to examine what had happened. I picked up a couple of shards, and turned over the frame to see the image from the
Triomphi di Carlo
by Francesco de’ Lodovici. I placed the woodcut and glass to one side and ran down the portego to the corridor that led to Crace’s bedroom.

“Gordon? Gordon? Are you all right?”

I didn’t bother to knock on his door, pushing my way in instead. He was lying fully clothed on top of the bed with his back to me, not moving.

“Gordon?”

I walked over to him and hesitated before touching him lightly on the shoulder.

“What the—?” said Gordon, turning over, his eyes opening.

For a moment, as he flapped and wrestled with an invisible enemy there on his bed, halfway between waking and dreaming, he reminded me of a trapped bird, its wings bound with wire, desperate to free itself.

“For fuck’s sake, Adam,” he said. “Thank God it’s you.”

“What’s happened? Are you all right?”

“I thought he’d come back—it was awful,” he said, easing himself up into a sitting position. He hadn’t shaved for days, and yellow-gray stubble covered his face like a rash of iron filings.

“Who? What?”

“Him. The boy who was here before you.”

“What—you mean someone you employed?”

“Yes, the one before you,” said Crace, his words spilling out. “He had had a copy of his key cut. Thought he’d been dismissed unfairly, without due reason. Reckoned he deserved something for all his trouble, so he stole in here last night. Thank God I couldn’t sleep. I was tossing and turning in my bed and on the way to the bathroom to get a sleeping pill when—”

“Gordon, slow down, slow down.”

He took a deep breath. “—When I heard a noise in the portego. I don’t mind telling you that I was scared out of my wits. I tried to tell myself it was a cat that had somehow climbed in through one of the windows, but when I heard the noise of one of the etchings being removed from the wall, I couldn’t stand there any longer. I went into my study, got the gun out of the urn and walked out into the portego, where I saw him…him…taking down the Francesco de’ Lodovici.”

“And what happened then?”

“I told him in no uncertain terms to put it back where it belonged. I pointed the gun at him, told him that I would use it, but, of course, I couldn’t. I was shaking all over. He knocked it out of my hand, and then the little thing got all nasty, started spouting all sorts of horrible language and filthy accusations. Oh, Adam, it was just awful.”

“What did he want?”

“It was quite clear I wasn’t going to get rid of him. I didn’t want him to take one of my favorite works—you can understand that, can’t you?—so I offered to give him some money.”

“Why didn’t you call the
carabinieri
?”

“No, I didn’t want them involved. No, that was impossible.”

“You didn’t give him any money, did you?”

“It was that or the Francesco de’ Lodovici. So I offered him five hundred euros to go away and never come back.”

“But did that satisfy him?” I thought of the woodcut on the floor in the portego.

“Yes, it did seem to. I got the money, gave it to him and felt relieved it was all over. But then as he was on his way out, he suddenly got all violent again and grabbed hold of my jacket. He pushed me against the wall, and I felt myself crash into the glass of the etching. He told me not to go around brandishing guns, that someone could get killed like that. And with that he pushed me down, dashing the etching off the wall as he did so. He threw the key at me and then he left.”

Crace ended his story and started to sob quietly. As he raised his thin, bony hands to his face to cover his eyes, I noticed that his skin was covered in cuts and his cream jacket had a cluster of small dark stains around the lapel.

“I’m sorry. Look at me, making a fool of myself,” said Crace, sniffing.

“Don’t be silly, Gordon. I just feel so awful for not being here.”

“Yes, that couldn’t be helped. But thank God you’re back. It made me realize just how much I’ve come to depend on you. Please promise you won’t leave me again, Adam. Promise?”

I nodded.

“I promise.”

“But what’s wrong with your forehead?” he said, noticing the bruise. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a silly accident, that’s all.”

When I walked around the palazzo that day, it looked as though every room in the building had been ransacked by the intruder. Trousers, shirts and vests lay strewn around Crace’s bedroom. The drawing room floor was full of books, their spines sticking out at odd angles, and the kitchen was littered with used food packets, empty tins and half-eaten meals. The only damage Crace’s former employee seemed to have caused was breaking the glass of the etching that hung in the portego; everything else was a manifestation of Gordon’s self-neglect. Crace had told me that Lucia, the girl who had come in to bring him food, often just left without saying a word and, as he didn’t take to her, he didn’t want to encourage her to stay around. No doubt she felt the same.

It was astonishing to see how far Crace had let himself go in the week that I had been away. Not only had he not shaved, but he had not washed or changed his clothes either. When I asked him why, he told me he thought there was little point in making an effort since he had nobody to make himself decent for. Each morning, he said, he had gone through his clothes, picking out various items he thought he might wear that day, but felt so apathetic and without purpose that he dropped them on the floor, where they had remained. It was as though, in my absence, he had simply lost the will to live. What would have happened, I wondered, if I had stayed away longer. I imagined him lying in bed, the heavy tapestry covers pressing down over his skeletal frame, his body slowly withering away, turning to dust.