The Absolution Read online

  “How much?”

  His fingers tapped again. “The exchange rate for bitcoins is pretty volatile at the moment. But at today’s rates, there’s the equivalent of about a quarter of a million euros on this stick alone.”

  Bagnasco, meanwhile, had brought back printouts from the cruise ships’ radar logs and started to identify the boats entering or leaving Venice. The logs showed one boat with no LOCODE: either its transmitter was broken, it was too small to require one, or it had deliberately turned off its equipment in order to avoid identification.

  Two separate records, twelve minutes apart, showed it moving from south to north along the Adriatic shore of the Lido shortly after 3 a.m. Another, thirty minutes earlier, showed what looked like the same boat inside the lagoon, heading south towards the Bocca di Malamocco, the more southerly of the two openings into the Adriatic.

  In other words, Kat thought, it had set off somewhere south of Venice but north of Malamocco.

  She looked again at the map. There were around half a dozen small islands in that area. Most were long since abandoned, the sites of former military garrisons, plague hospitals and leper colonies. One of the very few that was inhabited was La Grazia, the island owned by Count Birino Tignelli.

  It wasn’t enough for a search warrant, not by a long chalk. But at least it meant she now had a legitimate reason for calling on Count Tignelli and asking if he’d seen anything.

  But not today. Today she needed to set up the operations room, assemble a larger team of carabinieri and put out requests to other crime agencies for information. She also needed to arrange for Cassandre’s wife to identify the body at the mortuary. Unlike some officers, Kat had no problem with doing that; in fact, she found it strangely satisfying that even in the midst of such raw emotion she could stay detached and professional. It was one of the things that made her believe she was in the right job, but it nevertheless required some thought on how best to approach it.

  In this instance, she concluded, the person she was trying to put pressure on wasn’t just the wife but the forensic examiner too. She had a suspicion that at some point she might well need more information from Dr Hapadi about his Masonic brethren.

  “Can I ask something?” Bagnasco said as they grabbed a couple of tuna tramezzini at the bar round the corner. Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “Do you have any feedback for me?”

  “Feedback?” Kat said, surprised.

  “I know I’ve made some mistakes,” Bagnasco said. “I really want to improve, and I think continuous assessment is the way to do it. Plus I’m really pleased that I’m being mentored by a woman. I’m very ambitious, and I think the prosecutor’s right: I could learn a lot from you as a role model – how to get ahead in the Carabinieri as a female officer, I mean.”

  Kat waved the suggestion away. “You’re doing fine. Don’t worry about it.” She never knew what to say when people described themselves as ambitious. You got promoted because you were good, not because you announced to everyone that you wanted it.

  “But on a score of one to five?” Bagnasco persisted. “It’s good to have a number. That way I’ll be able to keep track of whether I’m improving or not.”

  Kat sighed. “Look, let’s get one thing clear. You work for me, not the other way round, and the job we’re both trying to do involves finding out who stabbed a man through the heart, cut his throat open and ripped out his tongue. If you’re doing something wrong, I’ll tell you. But I haven’t got the time or the energy to review your performance on a day-by-day basis. And the fact that we’re both women is pretty irrelevant to me, frankly.” Although a male assistant, she thought wistfully, would surely have been a lot less needy than Bagnasco was proving to be. Or did all the younger officers spout management-speak like this? The idea made her feel old and cynical.

  She thought back to something Hapadi had said earlier. “Don’t be too hard on her,” he’d said quietly, when Bagnasco was out of earshot. “She wouldn’t be the first officer to vomit at a crime scene.” And he’d given her a pointed look. Somehow, she realised, he must know about the time when she herself had done exactly that. It had been an equally gruesome murder: a fisherman, killed and tipped into a concrete holding tank for his own crabs to feast on. On that occasion, Aldo Piola had sluiced the vomit away before the forensic examiner got there. He must have mentioned it to Hapadi later.

  Even Flavio had said something similar about Bagnasco, just as Kat was leaving his office. “Go easy on her, won’t you?” he suggested. “It’ll be tough on her, being your number two.”

  “Why? Am I such a monster?” she’d demanded. He’d only laughed.

  She glanced at the second lieutenant, who was now looking somewhat crestfallen. “Look, I didn’t mean to sound harsh. But I’ve made far too many mistakes to be a role model for anyone. The best advice I can give you is to concentrate on doing your job. Oh, and not to sleep with any senior officers.”

  “Like you did with Colonel Piola, you mean?”

  So people were still talking about that. “Like I did with Colonel Piola, yes.”

  “Is it true he left his wife for you?” Bagnasco asked curiously. “And that you sent him back to her, because you weren’t interested any more?”

  Kat was fairly sure a male officer would never have asked such a personal question, but she swallowed her irritation and said mildly, “I believe the colonel and his wife have separated and are currently going through a divorce. It’s not something he and I ever discuss. These days we keep our relationship strictly professional.”

  “Isn’t that difficult? Given that you still work together quite closely?”

  “No,” she snapped. “It’s actually a lot easier than gossiping like a couple of old women.” She pulled out a ten-euro note and threw it on the counter. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  TEN

  THANKFULLY, BAGNASCO PROVED more adept at filling in Budget Requisitions, Overtime Projections, Evidence Collection Protocols and all the other forms needed to make the Carabinieri’s labyrinthine bureaucracy creak into action than she was at inspecting crime scenes or interviewing witnesses. Kat left her to it, and went to break the news of Cassandre’s death to his wife.

  Signora Cassandre turned out to be a more elegant woman than the photograph on her husband’s desk had suggested, impeccably dressed and well mannered even in the midst of shock. At one point she clutched Kat’s arm and asked what would happen to her apartment. It was a curious thing to mention at such a time, so Kat asked what she was concerned about.

  “The mortgages,” Signora Cassandre whispered anxiously. “I had to sign them. But he said it was only for a short time.”

  Kat made a mental note to have an officer go through Cassandre’s personal bank accounts. If he was money laundering, where had the proceeds gone? His lifestyle, she surmised from the elegance of his apartment, along with its location in one of the most fashionable parts of San Marco, was lavish, but hardly more so than one would expect of a senior partner in a Venetian bank. And then there had been all that money on the memory sticks. If that wasn’t Cassandre’s, whose was it? A client’s?

  She escorted Signora Cassandre to the morgue for the formal identification. Hapadi had placed wooden blocks under the victim’s head and a folded cloth over the gaping wound in the neck. Even so, the removal of the tongue had caused the cheeks and mouth to swell and twist grotesquely. Signora Cassandre took a careful look before confirming in a steady voice that it was her husband. One should never underestimate, Kat reflected, the sang-froid of old money. Hapadi, by way of contrast, looked deeply uncomfortable.

  Back at Campo San Zaccaria, she checked over what Bagnasco had done and had to grudgingly admit to being impressed. She did spot one glaring mistake, however.

  “I asked for five officers and twenty carabinieri. That’s standard for a homicide. You’ve listed three officers and eight carabinieri.”

  Bagnasco nodded. “Allocation are saying that’s all that’s av
ailable.”

  Kat went straight to General Saito. “As you said yourself, this is clearly going to be a big and complex investigation,” she reminded him. “We’ll probably need to bring in financial experts from the Guardia di Finanza. And because of the Masonic angle, people may be reluctant to talk to us – we’ll need more resources than usual, not fewer.”

  Saito held up a hand to forestall her. “It’s August, Captain. In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone’s away. But when you mention Freemasons . . . Let me caution you against jumping to conclusions. There’s no direct evidence yet that Freemasonry had a bearing on your victim’s death, as I understand it.”

  “You’re probably not aware of the latest developments, sir.” She filled him in on the calling cards they’d found at Cassandre’s office and the USB stick full of electronic money. “My working hypothesis is that he was involved in financial crimes, in the course of which he may have swindled or otherwise betrayed some of his fellow Freemasons. That’s why they killed him in a way that reflected the wording of their oath.”

  “Was he wearing a watch when he was found?”

  “No,” she said, puzzled by this sudden change of tack.

  “So a far more obvious hypothesis, Captain, is that he went for a late-night swim and was mugged,” Saito said blandly.

  “Whilst dressed for a Masonic ritual?” she said incredulously.

  He shrugged. “It’s your first solo investigation. All I’m saying is, be careful not to get carried away.”

  “Of course, sir,” she said. “Am I right in thinking that you yourself are a Freemason?”

  His expression gave nothing away. “How is that relevant?”

  “Only that in circumstances such as these we have to be seen to be completely objective. There may be people who will imagine that we might try and steer the investigation away from Freemasonry, in order to deflect attention from the number of carabinieri who are Masons.” She kept her tone as neutral as his had been.

  “Only if we draw their attention to the issue in the first place. Which is precisely my point, Captain. Putting a more . . . melodramatic interpretation on events than is strictly warranted by the evidence might be counterproductive. It might even be seen as an attempt on the part of an inexperienced officer to sensationalise the case and thereby draw attention to himself. Or, indeed, herself. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Thank you for the warning, sir. I’ll bear it in mind.”

  Softening his tone, he said, “Look . . . running an investigation like this effectively gives you the rank of acting major. Get it right, and promotion will surely follow. But you have to understand what getting it right means, in this context.”

  “Identifying the killer and getting a conviction,” she said. “Obviously.”

  “We always aim to do that, Captain. But there is another, equally important aspect to this case.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m talking about maintaining public confidence in the Carabinieri. A diligent and carefully managed investigation, one that’s proportionate to all the circumstances, is what’s required here.”

  She went downstairs still seething. Saito was as good as telling her to keep a low profile on this one, dangling the prospect of a promotion if she obliged. But at the same time, he was covering his arse by appointing an investigating officer who demonstrably wasn’t a Freemason. If Cassandre’s killers had hoped to create a climate of fear around his murder, they had certainly succeeded.

  Bagnasco was waiting for her, looking anxious.

  “What is it?” Kat said.

  “Have you been to the female officers’ locker room recently?”

  Kat sighed. “No, and I really can’t be bothered to right now. What is it this time? Someone’s decided to tell us that we’re lesbians? Or that we’re whores? Or that we’re lesbian whores?” Ever since she’d joined the Carabinieri, her locker had regularly been defaced with graffiti, none of it very imaginative. She added, “You wanted career advice earlier, so here’s some: lighter fluid gets rid of it just fine.”

  “I know,” Bagnasco said impatiently. “I’ve had plenty of stuff like that, and usually I ignore it. But I think you should see this one.”

  Kat followed her to the changing room. There, sprayed across her locker, was a cross inside a circle – the same symbol that had been on Alessandro Cassandre’s Masonic calling cards.

  “What does it mean?” Bagnasco asked.

  “It’s a warning,” Kat said at last. “A warning that they’re watching us. And that’s fine. Because now we’re also watching them.”

  Her final interview of the day was with the archivist whose name Dr Hapadi had given her. It turned out that he worked in a library attached to the hospital complex, just a few hundred yards from the morgue. She trudged up a narrow stone staircase to the first floor. There she found a long, well-lit room under a magnificent gilded ceiling. It was unexpected, but she had learnt over the years that Venice was full of such tucked-away treasures, too many to be listed by the guidebooks and consequently all but forgotten.

  A figure was bent over one of the display cases. “Signor Calergi?” she called.

  The figure turned, and she got her second surprise: he was wearing a dog collar. “Monsignor, actually. And you must be Captain Tapo – Dr Hapadi told me you might be coming. You want to know about Freemasonry, I understand?”

  “That’s it,” she said, wondering what else Hapadi had told the cleric. “We have a corpse who’s had his throat cut and his tongue torn out. He was left on the beach, to be washed by the tides . . . That relates to a Masonic oath, I understand?”

  “Some Masonic rites make reference to such a scenario, yes,” he said quietly. “I’ve never heard of it being enacted before.”

  “Our victim was also wearing an unusual mask. Dr Hapadi called it a ‘hoodwink’. And he had some rope wound around his arm.”

  Monsignor Calergi nodded. “These are symbols connected with a Mason’s initiation into a new degree – that is, a higher level of the organisation. The hoodwink represents the mystical darkness, or ignorance, of the uninitiated.

  “And the rope?”

  “The cable-tow symbolises the secret obligations that bind one Mason to another. Masons believe their first duty is always to help a brother, no matter what.”

  “Forgive me for asking, Father. But are you yourself a Freemason?”

  “I have an academic interest in the Craft,” Calergi said with a slight smile. “But the Vatican’s position is that one cannot be both a Mason and a practising Catholic.”

  “Why not?”

  “To understand that, you have to know a little about Freemasonry’s origins. Back in the thirteenth century, Venice was dominated by a number of powerful guilds and cofraternities. It was one such organisation, in fact, the Scuola Grande di San Marco, which built this very hospital. At that time, the Freemasons were little more than a trade guild for the itinerant stonecarvers who travelled from country to country building Europe’s cathedrals. Their symbols – the set square, the keystone, the plumb line – depicted the secrets of their craft, mysteries they were careful to keep from outsiders.

  “Then, in the eighteenth century, the first men of science found in the almost-forgotten secrets of the stonemasons a kind of allegory for their own rationalist beliefs. To them, the masons’ craft represented everything the Church was not – a brotherhood of equals, where man listened to his fellow man instead of the dictates of an autocratic pontiff; progress and reason, instead of medieval superstition and conservatism; mutual prosperity and self-help, instead of sacrifice and charity. In their rituals, Masons replaced the Bible with the Volume of Sacred Law. Their oaths were dedicated to the Grand Architect of the Universe. They weren’t denying God, not explicitly; but they were open to the heresy that the divine wears many masks, of which the Catholic deity is but one.”

  “And from rejecting the authority of the Church to questioning the authority of the state wasn’t such a great leap either, I imagine?�
�

  “Exactly,” he agreed. “It was a group of Masons, for example, who were responsible for betraying Venice to their fellow Freemason, Napoleon Bonaparte, without a single shot being fired. A century later, an offshoot of the movement, the Carbonari, was accused of trying to overthrow the government and seize power for themselves. In many ways, the Masons were a white-collar version of the Mafia, and followed a similar trajectory. What began as a network of self-help organisations that depended on secrecy for their survival gradually became a magnet for criminality. In our own century that has been particularly true, of course, with so-called black lodges like P2.”

  “P2. That was Propaganda Due, wasn’t it?” She recalled Piola telling her a little about the P2 scandal, but was interested to hear the archivist’s view.

  He nodded. “A black lodge that existed from about 1960 to 1980. Over two hundred government officials, military leaders, journalists and businessmen were listed as members. The Grand Master fled abroad and was charged in absentia with conspiracy against the state. But the truth is, no one really knows what P2’s purpose or political agenda was, even today.”

  “Do you have any knowledge of a black lodge like that operating here in Venice?”

  Father Calergi’s expression gave nothing away. “Such a thing is always possible. But if so, it has no contact with any of the lodges I know of.”

  She took out one of the cards she’d found in Cassandre’s desk. “Does this look like the card of an official lodge to you?”

  Father Calergi examined the card, visibly surprised, then shook his head. “‘De la Fidelité’ was the name of an ancient Venetian lodge, long since vanished. They must have resurrected the name to lend themselves an air of authenticity. ‘Third Degree’ is a reference to Cassandre’s status – it means he was a fully fledged master Mason, a member of the innermost circle. Cards like these were once an important part of a Mason’s paraphernalia – when visiting another lodge, he would hand one to the Tyler, the official guarding the door, to prove his bona fides. But this symbol isn’t Masonic, or not specifically.”