Scorpia Read Free

slow motion, the bag arced through the air. Alex took two steps and caught it.
    And then it was all over. The two thieves were a tangled heap, half submerged in cold water. The Vespa was lying, buckled and broken, on the ground. Two policemen, who had arrived when it was almost too late, were hurrying towards them. The stall owners were laughing and applauding. Tom was staring. Alex went over to Miss Bedfordshire and gave her the bag.
    “I think this is yours,” he said.
    “Alex…” Miss Bedfordshire was lost for words. “How…?”
    “It was just something I picked up in therapy,” Alex said.
    He turned and walked back to his friend.

THE WIDOW’S PALACE
    “N ow, this building is called the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo,” Mr Grey announced.
“Bovolo
is the Venetian word for snail shell and, as you can see, this wonderful staircase is shaped a bit like a shell.”
    Tom Harris stifled a yawn. “If I see one more palace, one more museum or one more canal,” he muttered, “I’m going to throw myself under a bus.”
    “There aren’t any buses in Venice,” Alex reminded him.
    “A water bus, then. If it doesn’t hit me, maybe I’ll get lucky and drown.” Tom sighed. “You know the trouble with this place? It’s like a museum. A bloody great museum. I feel like I’ve been here half my life.”
    “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
    “Not a day too soon, Alex.”
    Alex couldn’t bring himself to agree. He had never been anywhere quite like Venice – but then there was nowhere in the world remotely like it, with its narrow streets and dark canals twisting around each other in an intricate, amazing knot. Every building seemed to compete with its neighbour to be more ornate and more spectacular. A short walk could take you across four centuries and every corner seemed to lead to another surprise. It might be a canalside market with great slabs of meat laid out on the tables and fish dripping blood onto the paving stones. Or a church, seemingly floating, surrounded by water on all four sides. A grand hotel or a tiny restaurant. Even the shops were works of art, their windows framing exotic masks, brilliantly coloured glass vases, dried pasta and antiques. It was a museum, maybe, yet one that was truly alive.
    But Alex understood what Tom was feeling. After four days, even he was beginning to think he’d had enough. Enough statues, enough churches, enough mosaics. And enough tourists all crammed together beneath a sweltering September sun. Like Tom, he was beginning to feel overcooked.
    And what about Scorpia?
    The trouble was, he had absolutely no idea what Yassen Gregorovich had meant by his last words. Scorpia could be a person. Alex had looked in the phone book and found no fewer than fourteen people with that name living in and around Venice. Itcould be a business. Or it could be a single building.
Scuole
were homes set up for poor people. La Scala was an opera house in Milan. But Scorpia didn’t seem to be anything. No signs pointed to it; no streets were named after it.
    It was only now he was here, nearing the end of the trip, that Alex began to see it had been hopeless from the start. If Yassen had told him the truth, the two men – he and John Rider – had been hired killers. Had they worked for Scorpia? If so, Scorpia would be very carefully concealed … perhaps inside one of these old palaces. Alex looked again at the staircase that Mr Grey was describing. How was he to know that these steps didn’t lead to Scorpia? Scorpia could be anywhere. It could be everywhere. And after four days in Venice, Alex was nowhere.
    “We’re going to walk back down the Frezzeria towards the main square,” Mr Grey announced. “We can eat our sandwiches there and after lunch we’ll visit St Mark’s Basilica.”
    “Oh great!” Tom exclaimed. “Another church!”
    They set off, a dozen English schoolchildren, with Mr Grey and Miss Bedfordshire in front, talking animatedly together. Alex and Tom trailed at the