The Abomination Read online

  Map

  Epigraph

  There is within every man and woman a core of evil only lightly held in check. Whether we call it savagery, brutality or barbarism; whether we give it some scientific-sounding label such as sadism or psychosis; whether we ascribe it to amorality or the Devil himself, it is, nevertheless, mankind’s constant companion. Most of the time it sleeps, invisible and unheeded, within our breasts, and we call ourselves civilised and pretend it is not there. But only give us cause to wake the beast – give us unlimited power, for example, over our fellow man, and tell us there will be no repercussions from exercising it – and we will every one of us prove capable of acts more terrible than the imagination can conceive.

  And each time we will wake, as if from a dream, saying “Never again”, and each time we will lie.

  Dr Paul Doherty MRCPsych

  Contents

  Map

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Chapter Seventy-two

  Chapter Seventy-three

  Chapter Seventy-four

  Chapter Seventy-five

  Chapter Seventy-six

  Historical note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Jonathan Holt

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Venice, January 5

  THE LITTLE BOAT slipped away from the quayside, its two-stroke outboard no more than a quiet splutter at the stern. Ricci, tending the throttle, steered carefully around the fishing boats and out-of-season gondolas that cluttered the tiny boatyard. He made this trip out to the lagoon every evening, ostensibly to check his crab pots. Few people knew that his excursions sometimes netted a more lucrative catch as well: packages tightly wrapped in blue plastic, attached by persons and vessels unseen to the buoys that marked each pot’s location.

  As the boat left the island of Giudecca behind he stooped to light a cigarette. “È sicuro,” he said quietly into the flame. It’s safe.

  His passenger came up from the cramped cabin without replying. He was dressed for the weather – dark waterproofs, gloves, a woollen hat pulled low over his eyes. In his left hand he still held the metal case with which he’d boarded. A little larger than a briefcase, and oblong, it reminded Ricci of the cases musicians kept their instruments in. Except he was fairly sure his passenger tonight was no musician.

  An hour earlier Ricci had taken a call on his cellulare. The same voice that usually told him how many packages to look out for informed him that tonight he’d be carrying a passenger. It had been on Ricci’s lips to retort that there were plenty of water taxis in Venice, and that his fishing boat wasn’t one of them, but something made the comment die in his throat. In all the time he’d been getting orders from the voice, he’d never heard it sound frightened before. Not even when the instructions had been to take a weighted body-shaped package out to the furthest regions of the lagoon and heave it over the side, for the crabs to feast on.

  From their left came the sound of splashing, shouts. Several wooden craft, powered by oars, were racing through the water towards them. Ricci reduced the engine, idling.

  “What is it?” The first words his passenger had spoken. His Italian, Ricci noted, was heavily accented. An American.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not for us. It’s for La Befana. They’re practising their racing.” As the boats neared, one could see they were filled with what appeared to be women, in huge frocks and bonnets; only as they passed did it become apparent that these were teams of rowers, dressed incongruously in female costumes. “They’ll be gone in a minute,” he added. Sure enough, the boats rounded a buoy and headed back for Venice, one narrowly ahead.

  The passenger grunted. He’d ducked down as the rowers approached, clearly intent on not being seen. Now he stood at the prow with one hand on the rail, scanning the horizon as Ricci opened up the throttle.

  It took an hour to reach the crab pots. There was nothing attached to any of the lines, nor had any boats come to meet them from the other side. It was dark now, but Ricci kept his lights turned off. In the distance, the humps of a few small islands broke the horizon line.

  His companion spoke. “Which one’s Poveglia?”

  Ricci pointed. “That one.”

  “Take me.”

  Without another word Ricci set a course. There were some, he knew, who’d have refused, or asked for more money. Most of the fishermen gave the little island of Poveglia a very wide berth. But for exactly that reason it was a useful place for a small-time smuggler to be familiar with, and he sometimes landed there at night to pick up cargoes too large to be tied to a buoy – crates of cigarettes or whisky, the occasional shivering Eastern European girl and her pimp. Even so, he rarely lingered longer than he had to.

  Unconsciously Ricci crossed himself, no more aware of the gesture than he was of the tiny adjustments he was making to the outboard as he steered a complex course through the sandbanks and shallows that littered this part of the lagoon. Then came a stretch of open water, and the boat jumped forward. Freezing spray lashed their faces as they crashed from wave to wave, but the man in the prow seemed hardly to notice.

  Eventually Ricci slowed. The island was just ahead of them now, silhouetted against the purple-black sky, the clock tower of the abandoned hospital piercing the trees. A few faint dots of light flickered amongst the ruins – candles, perhaps, in one of the rooms.
So it was a rendezvous, after all. No one lived on Poveglia, not any more.

  Kneeling, Ricci’s passenger unlatched the metal case. Ricci caught a glimpse of a barrel, a black rifle stock, a line of bullets, all packed neatly into their allotted spaces. But it was a night-sight, fat as a camera lens, that the man pulled out first. He raised it to his eye as he stood, steadying himself against the boat’s movement.

  For a moment he remained looking in the direction of the lights. Then he gestured to Ricci to head towards the jetty, leaping impatiently but noiselessly onto the shore even before the boat touched land, the metal case still in his hand.

  Later, Ricci would wonder if he’d heard any shots. But then he recalled the other tube he’d glimpsed in the case – a silencer, even longer and fatter than the night-sight. So it must have been his imagination.

  His passenger was gone just fifteen minutes, and they rode back to Giudecca in silence.

  One

  THE PARTY IN the dimly lit Venetian bacaro had been going on for almost five hours, and the volume level was still rising. The good-looking young man who was trying to get off with Katerina Tapo wasn’t so much chatting her up as shouting her up: the two of them had to stand very close and bellow alternately into each other’s ears just to be heard, which, while it certainly robbed their flirting of any subtlety, also meant she was left in little doubt of his intentions. That was no bad thing, Kat decided. Only those who really fancied each other would persevere with small talk in such difficult conditions. For her part, she’d already made the decision that Eduardo – or was it Gesualdo? – would be coming back later to her tiny two-room apartment in Mestre.

  Eduardo, or possibly Gesualdo, wanted to know what she did for a living. “I’m a travel agent,” she yelled back.

  He nodded. “Cool. Get to travel much yourself?”

  “A bit,” she shouted.

  She felt her phone buzz against her thigh. It was set to ring, but such was the noise around them she hadn’t heard it. Pulling it out, she saw she’d missed three calls already. “Un momento,” she shouted into it. Indicating to her companion she’d be back in a minute, she struggled down the crowded steps of the bar into the open air.

  Mother of Christ, it was cold. Around her a few hardy smokers were braving the chill: her own mouth barked steam almost as thick as their smoke as she turned back to the phone. “Si? Pronto?”

  “There’s a body,” Francesco’s voice said. “You’re on it. I just spoke to Allocation.”

  “Homicide?” She struggled to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  “Could be. Whatever it is, it’s going to be a big one.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Francesco didn’t answer her directly. “I’m texting the address. Near the Salute. You’ll meet Colonnello Piola at the scene. Good luck. And remember, you owe me for this.” He rang off.

  She glanced at the screen. No address yet, but if it was near the church of Santa Maria della Salute she’d need to catch the vaporetto. Even so, she was probably twenty minutes away, and that was assuming she didn’t go home to change first, which she definitely ought to, given what she was wearing. Damn, she decided, there was no time for that. She’d do her coat up tight and hope Piola didn’t wonder too much at her bare legs or her party make-up. It was La Befana, after all – January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, but also a celebration in honour of the old witch who brings children sweets or lumps of coal depending on how naughty they’ve been – and the whole city was out having a good time.

  At least she’d brought rubber boots as well as her heels. Everyone had: the combination of winter tides, snow and a full moon had brought acqua alta to Venice, the intermittent floods that plagued them almost every year now. Twice a day the city was submerged by a tidal surge several feet higher than Venice had been built to accommodate. Canals expanded over their pavements; St Mark’s Square – the lowest point of the city – became a salt-water lake, soupy with cigarette ends and pigeon droppings, and even those who tried to stick to the raised wooden walkways put out by the authorities sometimes found themselves having to splash.

  She felt adrenalin sluice her stomach. Ever since she’d been promoted to the detective division she’d been pressing to work on a murder case. And now, with any luck, she had one. Colonel Piola wouldn’t have been assigned to this if it was just another drunken tourist drowning in a canal. So that meant a double stroke of luck: her first big investigation would be under the supervision of the senior detective she most admired.

  She briefly considered going back into the bar to tell Eduardo/Gesualdo she had to go to work, and maybe get his phone number before she left. Then she decided against it. Travel agents, even busy ones, were rarely called to their offices at ten to midnight, especially on La Befana. It would mean explaining why she didn’t tell casual pickups like him she was actually an officer of the Carabinieri, and generally soothing his wounded pride, and she really didn’t have time for that.

  Besides, if this was a murder investigation, she was unlikely to have any time over the next couple of weeks to return his phone calls, let alone see him for sex. Eduardo was just going to have to get lucky with someone else.

  Her phone pulsed again as Francesco texted her the address, and she felt her heart beat a little faster in response.

  Detective-Colonel Aldo Piola stared down at the body. He badly wanted to break his six-day-old New Year’s resolution and light a cigarette. Not that he could have smoked here in any case. Preservation of evidence came first.

  “A piovan?” he said wonderingly, using the Venetian slang for “priest”.

  Dr Hapadi, the forensic examiner, shrugged. “That’s what was called in. But there’s a bit more to this one. Want to take a closer look?”

  Somewhat reluctantly, Piola stepped off the raised walkway into the foot-deep murk, splashing gingerly towards the circle of light emanating from Hapadi’s portable generator. The blue plastic wraparounds the doctor had offered him when he arrived at the scene were immediately flooded with icy seawater, despite being tied around his calves with elastic bands. Another pair of shoes ruined, he thought with an inward sigh. He wouldn’t have minded, but he and his wife had been celebrating La Befana with friends at Bistrot de Venise, one of Venice’s best restaurants, and as a consequence he was wearing his best new Bruno Maglis. As soon as he could, he jumped up onto the marble steps of the church, one level above the body, pausing to shake each foot dry as if he were stepping out of a bath. You never knew: perhaps they could be salvaged.

  The body lay slumped across the steps, half in and half out of the water, almost as though the victim had been trying to crawl up out of the sea into the sanctuary of the church. That would be the effect of the tide, which was already receding a little, back towards the pavement that usually separated the church from the Canale di San Marco. There was no mistaking the black and gold vestments of a Catholic priest dressed for Mass, nor the two bullet holes in the back of the matted head that left purple-brown stains dripping onto the marble.

  “Could this have happened here?” Piola asked.

  Hapadi shook his head. “I doubt it. At a guess, the high water washed the body in from the lagoon. If it weren’t for the acqua alta, it’d be halfway to Croatia by now.”

  If so, Piola reflected, the corpse was little different from the rest of the rubbish that got washed into the city. The seawater around him had a faint aroma of sewage: not all Venetian cesspits were watertight, and some residents notoriously saw high water as a chance to save themselves the usual emptying fee. “What height was it tonight?”

  “One forty, according to the pipes.” The electronic sirens that informed Venetians of impending acqua alta also warned them of its extent – ten centimetres above a metre for every note the sirens sounded.

  Piola bent down to take a closer look. The priest, whoever he was, had been of slight build. It was tempting to turn him over, but Piola knew that to do so before the forensic team had finished photographin
g would be to incur their wrath.

  “So,” he said thoughtfully. “He was shot somewhere to the east or south.”

  “Possibly. But you’re wrong about one thing, at least.”

  “What?”

  “Take a look at the shoes.”

  Gingerly, Piola hooked a finger under the sodden cassock and lifted it away from the priest’s leg. The foot was small, almost dainty, and it was shod in what was unmistakeably a woman’s leather shoe.

  “He’s a tranny?” he said, amazed.

  “Not exactly.” Hapadi almost looked as if he were enjoying this. “OK, now the head.”

  Piola had to crouch right down, his buttocks almost touching the eddying water, to do as Hapadi asked. The corpse’s eyes were open, the forehead resting against the step as if the priest had died in the very act of drinking from the sea. As Piola looked, a small wave washed over the chin into the open mouth before sucking away again, leaving it drooling.

  Then Piola saw. The chin was without stubble, the lips too pink. “Mother of God,” he said, surprised. “It’s a woman.” Automatically, he crossed himself.

  There could be no doubt – the shaped eyebrow and trace of eyeliner around the lifeless eye, the feminine lashes; even, he now saw, the discreet earring half-hidden by a strand of matted hair. She was about forty, with a little middle-aged thickening of the shoulders, which was why he hadn’t realised immediately. Recovering himself, he touched the sodden alb. “Pretty realistic, for fancy dress.”

  “If it is fancy dress.”

  Piola looked at the other man curiously. “Why do you say that?”

  “What woman would dare to go out dressed as a priest in Italy?” Hapadi said rhetorically. “She wouldn’t get ten yards.” He shrugged. “Then again, maybe she didn’t. Get ten yards, I mean.”

  Piola frowned. “Two in the back of the head? Seems a bit extreme.”

  “Colonnello?”

  Piola turned. An attractive young woman, her face heavily made up, wearing a short black coat, galoshes, and apparently very little else, was hailing him from the wooden walkway.

  “You can’t come through here,” he said automatically. “This is a crime scene.”