Chapter 6
NEXT FRIDAY MORNING
According to the regulations of the Italian state railways, dogs travelling on high-speed trains must be equipped with muzzles.
Oscar didn’t like the muzzle I had bought for him and, for my part, I felt almost embarrassed having to tie it on him.
Fortunately, this was Italy, and there’s a lovely Italian expression that translates roughly as, ‘No sooner is the law made, than the way to get round it is invented.’ The ticket collector who came walking through the carriage spotted him sitting at my feet, wearing his muzzle and looking fed up.
She stopped to inform me that she was quite happy not only for me to remove his muzzle but also for him to sit on the empty leather seat alongside me so he could be more comfortable.
He licked her hand gratefully and she went off with a smile.
I gave him a treat and apologised again for the demeaning muzzle.
In reply, he licked my hand as well, and I got the impression that he understood and forgave me.
As the train picked up speed and dived into an impressive series of tunnels bored through the Apennine mountains, I sat back and reflected on the past few days with my parents.
All in all, things couldn’t have gone much better.
Within a very short space of time, Mum and Anna had ganged up against me and had soon been giggling like schoolgirls at embarrassing tales of my youth.
They had spent hours in the kitchen, where they had swapped recipes, and I had found myself served Yorkshire pudding for the first time in ages.
Most importantly, Mum had never once brought up the subject of Helen, my ex-wife, and I was feeling very relieved as a result.
Dad and I had taken Oscar for walks in the hills, where Dad was fascinated by all the different plants, from olive trees and vines to wild rosemary and orchids.
He loves his garden and he appeared fascinated by my new plant identification app on my phone.
This had been a Christmas present from Lina, and it was surprisingly accurate.
All I had to do was point it at a plant, and it would produce the Latin name and, with the more familiar ones, the common name.
I offered to buy him one but, as his idea of a phone is a nineteen-sixties vintage landline, he had nothing on which to instal it.
I wondered whether maybe I should buy him a smartphone for Christmas, but I had a feeling it would lie unused in the back of a drawer.
Technology never was his forte and, as for my mum, she believes the Internet to be the work of the Devil.
We went into Florence to see the sights on a number of occasions, including taking Mum and Dad to visit the Uffizi gallery.
We had to book in advance and there were crowds of people in there, admiring some of the most famous paintings in the world, but they both seemed to enjoy themselves in spite of all the visitors.
We walked across the Ponte Vecchio and, inevitably, called in at the office of Dan Armstrong, Private Investigations.
Mum did a lot more walking than I had expected, and she managed pretty well although, come the evenings, I could see that she was weary.
When the time came to take them back to the airport on Tuesday, both Mum and Anna had been in tears, and I had felt an overwhelming sensation of relief that Anna had been accepted into the family – as had Oscar.
Mum had actually hugged him before she left and promised to bring him ‘something special’ next time she came to see him.
All in all, things had gone a whole lot more smoothly than I had been expecting – apart from the numerous revelations about the Sherlock Holmes Club, of course, which still made Anna snigger when she spoke of them.
I had little doubt that before long, she would tell Lina and she, of course, would then tell Virgilio.
As a result, I felt sure the next time I had to visit the Florence murder squad offices at the questura, I would be the object of considerable ridicule.
Still, the important thing was that by the time that I dropped my parents back to the airport, I had been confident that all was well on the family front.
The train arrived in Venice on time and, as before, Mary was waiting for me on the platform. Oscar greeted her enthusiastically – no surprise there – and she appeared equally pleased to meet him. As we walked out of the station, we chatted.
‘I’ve prepared the final list of guests – Miss Graceland has a copy for you – and there are going to be twelve in total: two big-name directors, two producers, an agent, a couple of other studio staff – I’m not too sure what they do – and two actors whose names I’m sure you’ll recognise.
Would you believe Dirk Foster and Lucy O’Connell?
’ She caught my eye. ‘Movie royalty, right?’
I nodded in agreement. I had seen a couple of films featuring Foster.
He was a Sylvester Stallone lookalike with bulging muscles in places where most normal humans like me don’t have places.
As for Lucy O’Connell, she had been acclaimed as the sexiest woman on the planet some years ago with her pouting lips and gravity-defying bust. I hadn’t heard much about her recently.
I seemed to remember reading that she had been in trouble of some sort, but the detail escaped me.
She was certainly a big name though, and I looked forward to meeting her – along with Foster and his muscles.
I queried Mary’s maths. ‘I make that nine. Who are the others?’
‘Three partners, then there’s you and me, along with the actors for the murder mystery event, although they won’t be staying over. Add in Valentina, Diego and their daughter, and that’ll be over twenty people. I think Miss Graceland’s quiet island retreat is going to get busy.’
As we emerged into the sunlight, I saw Diego in the launch.
As before, he was waiting a little way out in the channel and when he spotted us, he came chugging over to the steps.
Oscar’s eyes lit up as we approached the Grand Canal.
Like most Labradors, he loves water, and I made sure I kept a tight hold on his lead to prevent him from diving in.
Apart from the risk of being run down by one of the numerous vessels travelling up and down the waterway, I had read that swimming was prohibited – maybe because the waters were potentially polluted – and I didn’t want him to catch anything.
This time, Mary kindly asked Diego to take a different route so that I could see more of the city, and we headed off in the opposite direction.
After passing underneath a distinctly modern-looking curved footbridge, we turned left into a narrower canal.
The buildings here were far from medieval, and it was clear that this was a more modern, predominantly commercial area, and I even spotted a few cars and vans driving alongside us for a while.
A few minutes later, we emerged from the canal into a much wider waterway with the long island of Giudecca to our right and a line of superyachts moored to our left alongside quays that were a reminder – if one were needed – of Venice’s illustrious past as a naval power.
Ahead of us was the long, low outline of the Lido and, between us and it, the Isola dei Cigni.
Sight of Alice Graceland’s island brought me back to why I was here, and I turned towards Mary, who was sitting stroking Oscar’s ears, a blissful expression on his face.
We had gone into the cabin to get out of the burning sun, and I was sitting opposite Mary on one of the smart, red-cushioned benches.
‘Am I right in thinking that the only way to get to Miss Graceland’s island is by private boat?
It’s not on a regular bus stop, is it?’ I stopped and corrected myself. ‘Sorry, not bus, boat.’
‘We’re not that far from the main route taken by the vaporetti – that’s the name the locals give to the passenger ferries – going to and from the Lido, but none of them stop at the island. So, yes, you either need your own boat or you take a water taxi.’
‘This may be a stupid question, but how deep is the water around the island?’
‘I’ve no idea, but it’s certainly deep enough for fairly big ships to come past not that far off the island.’
‘As a means to get away from the paparazzi, it’s a perfect solution. I wonder if Miss Graceland will stay here indefinitely.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me. On the occasions when she’s spoken about her past, I’ve definitely got the impression that her career hasn’t all been plain sailing, in spite of her phenomenal success.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are quite a few skeletons in her cupboard that she would be happy to leave behind and never see again.
’ She paused for a moment’s reflection. ‘She probably deserves a bit of peace and quiet – and I can’t think of many better places to do that than an island in the Venice lagoon. ’
‘She told me she’d had a fractious relationship with the media. I couldn’t find a social media presence for her. I would have thought you’d handle that sort of thing for her.’
‘That was one of the first things I offered to do, but she was dead against it. She’s quite old-fashioned about that sort of thing, even though she looks and sounds so youthful.’
I reflected on what Mary had said. Alice Graceland’s career had been meteoric, but success probably hadn’t come as easily as one might assume.
Social media can be brutal, and I didn’t blame her one bit for choosing to steer clear of it.
Maybe her choice of a fortress on an island had not been by chance.
As Mary had said, here, amid the beauty of the Venice lagoon, she should be able to relax – or at least she would be able to, once this murder mystery weekend was over.