{"id":361,"date":"2018-06-07T23:20:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T22:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/217.199.187.195\/jpdelaney.co.uk\/?page_id=361"},"modified":"2018-06-08T22:43:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T21:43:23","slug":"absolution","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jpdelaney.co.uk\/?page_id=361","title":{"rendered":"Absolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Carnivia Book Three – Extract<\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Prologue<\/h2>\n

The candidate was in darkness.<\/p>\n

He heard three short, staccato knocks as his two companions struck the door, followed by the response: \u201cWho goes there?\u201d And he heard the answer, confidently given, the words of the ritual flowing smoothly from their tongues.<\/p>\n

Guided by a hand on his back, he stepped through the door into the room beyond. Even though he couldn\u2019t see it, he could sense that it was large and cool, like a church. He smelt candle wax, and the faint spicy richness of the polished stone flags under his bare feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrother, you will step off with your left foot, and bring the heel of your right foot into the hollow of your left,\u201d a stern voice said.<\/p>\n

He did as he was bidden.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow step off with your right, and then bring your heels together.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he obeyed, the candidate kept his expression solemn. He knew that those around him would be scrutinising his face for any hint of impropriety. Inwardly, though, he was exultant. Taking the third step was an indication that he had now reached the very highest degree of the Craft. All of its so-called secrets would be revealed to him.<\/p>\n

But, far more importantly, he would be trusted by them. He could ask any favour of them, secure in the knowledge that it would be granted.<\/p>\n

At last, he was safe.<\/p>\n

It had been a close-run thing \u2013 there had been times just recently when he had felt as if he was staring into an abyss of terror and panic \u2013 but now, thanks to the protection of these men, he was untouchable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe candidate is in order, Worshipful, and awaits your further will and pleasure,\u201d a voice said beside him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will cause him to kneel on his naked knees,\u201d the Master responded.<\/p>\n

The candidate knelt. His knees were naked because the loose cotton trousers \u2013 the only clothing he was wearing \u2013 had been rolled up to his thighs. There was a cushion on the floor, and once he was kneeling he reached forward to grasp the table he knew would be in front of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you willing to take the oath?\u201d the Master\u2019s voice said above him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am willing and eager to take the oath.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDetach your hands and kiss the book. Then make your solemn vow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The candidate did as he was instructed. As he spoke the stark, formal words of the oath he fancied that he could just make out, through a tiny chink in the mask that covered his eyes \u2013 the \u2018hoodwink\u2019, as it was known in the arcane jargon of the fellowship \u2013 the flame of a nearby candle.<\/p>\n

In a few moments, he knew, he would be asked what it was that he most desired. \u201cMore light,\u201d he would reply, and the velvet-lined eyeholes of the hoodwink would spring open to reveal that in front of him was a chair in which a human skeleton was sitting, illuminated by the flickering flames of a dozen tapers. It was a symbolic reminder of the consequences of betraying his fellows.<\/p>\n

To the candidate, the concept of betrayal was quite meaningless. A man looked out for himself. What else was there? But just for a moment the words he was uttering, which until now had been simply another part of the ceremony, took on terrible meaning. Involuntarily, he faltered.<\/p>\n

If any of the watchers noticed, no one said anything. In the long silence after the oath was finished, the candidate shifted a little on the cushion. He must not make such a mistake again.<\/p>\n

The point of something sharp pressed against the left side of his chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrother,\u201d the Master\u2019s voice said, \u201con entering this place for the first time, you were received on the point of a compass pressing your left breast, the moral of which was explained to you. On entering the second time, you were received on the angle of the square, which was similarly explained. I now receive you on both points of the compass.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sharp object lifted from his chest. A moment later, he felt it press a few inches to the right. It felt heavier than on the previous occasions when he\u2019d undergone initiation rituals. He must remember to ask about it later, when they were enjoying the convivial drinks and dinner that would follow the ceremony. They liked nothing better, he had discovered, than to discuss the finer details of their mumbo-jumbo and what it symbolised.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the vital parts of man are contained within the chest, so the most excellent tenets of our institution are contained within these two points \u2013 which is to say, secrecy and honour,\u201d the Master droned.<\/p>\n

The sharp point lifted away. The candidate tensed a little \u2013 next, he knew, the compass would be pressed against his skin just hard enough to draw blood. Then the ritual would be over.<\/p>\n

He certainly wasn\u2019t expecting the long, hard-bladed shiv that thumped with sudden violence between his ribs. With a sudden choking gasp he fell backwards. Waiting hands caught him and set him upright. He put his hand to his chest and felt the handle of the knife, lodged solidly within him; felt his skin already running with blood, blood that was pumping from his chest in abrupt, jerky spurts. He tried to tear the hoodwink off, but his hands no longer obeyed him.<\/p>\n

And then, even more terrifyingly, he felt the spurting stop, and knew that his heart was gone.<\/p>\n

Chapter One<\/p>\n

It was going to be another beautiful day. Although it was only just gone ten a.m., the sun was fierce and fiery and the only clouds were trapped high over the distant mountains to the north. Kat felt the welcome coolness of spray on her face as the Carabinieri motorboat bounced against a wave, and opened the throttle even wider.<\/p>\n

In the stern, Second Lieutenant Maria Bagnasco gave a startled gasp as seawater slapped her face, and stumbled forwards to the relative safety of the cockpit. As well as being wet, she was, Kat noticed, somewhat green. She\u2019d been looking that way ever since they neared the Bocca di Lido, the narrow opening that separated the calm waters of the Venetian lagoon from the choppier open sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have you been in Venice, sottotenente<\/em>?\u201d\u00a0 Kat called over the noise of the engine.<\/p>\n

\u201cA month,\u201d the second lieutenant answered dutifully, although she looked as though even the act of speaking was physically unwelcome right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you\u2019re still getting seasick? Even when the water\u2019s as calm as this?\u201d Kat said, surprised.<\/p>\n

Bagnasco didn\u2019t reply. Telling the capitano<\/em> that it wasn\u2019t so much the waves making her sick as the ridiculously tight turns Captain Tapo was making as she wove and ducked between the ships making their way up and down the shipping lane from the Bocca di Lido to the Canale di San Marco wasn\u2019t, she knew, going to make any difference. Kat Tapo had clearly relished the chance to turn on the boat\u2019s flashing blue light and break the speed limit. It had been this way ever since leaving the pontoon at Rio dei Greci, the canal beside the Carabinieri headquarters at Campo San Zaccaria: Kat had jumped in and started the engine, drumming her fingers impatiently, while Bagnasco was still clambering cautiously down from the jetty.<\/p>\n

The boat veered sharply to the right as they cleared the artificial island built as part of MOSE, the vast underwater gate system that would \u2013 if the politicians and engineers were to be believed \u2013 soon protect the city against flooding, although many ordinary Venetians were more sceptical. Only recently fourteen people attached to the construction consortium, including its president, had been arrested on corruption charges relating to the project, which was currently running at two billion Euros and six years over budget.<\/p>\n

The Carabinieri motorboat was travelling south now, parallel to the Lido, bouncing at right angles to the waves that streamed towards the beach. Kat scanned the shore as she steered. Even though they were only a few kilometres from St Mark\u2019s Square as the seagull flew, this was a very different world. In these closing weeks of August, the Lido had the feel of the faded but once-opulent bathing resort it had once been. Here was Nicelli, the tiny airport where Mussolini had once stood to welcome Hitler, now mainly used by the helicopters and Pipers of the super-rich; here was the hulking, Fascist-era cinema built to glorify the dictator\u2019s pet film festival, around which Kat could see a cluster of tiny figures \u2013 although why anyone would want to spend a morning like this watching a movie was beyond her. Here were the serried rows of sunloungers and parasols; here too was the private beach of the former Hotel Des Bains, where Winston Churchill had once painted watercolours, standing at his easel wrapped in a bathrobe and puffing on a cigar. The old capannas<\/em>, the brightly-patterned bathing tents where Visconti had filmed a different death in Venice to a soundtrack of Mahler, were still here, arranged in rows to the rear the sunloungers, but these days you had to be a millionaire to rent one for the whole season.<\/p>\n

Death in Venice\u2026. As if on cue, Kat made out a white capanna-<\/em>like tent that was slightly larger than the rest, placed incongruously right on the shoreline. Blue and white tape cordoned off a swathe of beach around it, from one breakwater to the next. A figure in a white protective suit, complete with mask and hood, stood up, then crouched back down again to examine something.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the scene-of-crime team.\u201d Kat turned the motorboat towards a hotel jetty about fifty yards away, slowing to a crawl as she did so. Dr Hapardi, she knew, wouldn\u2019t be best pleased if she ruined his delicate handiwork with her wash.<\/p>\n

It had been only thirty minutes or so since General Saito himself had called her at her desk. \u201cHow busy are you, Capitano?\u201d he\u2019d asked without preamble.<\/p>\n

\u201cColonel Piola and I are still wrapping up the paperwork on the Murano investigation,\u201d she\u2019d replied. \u201cPerhaps another three or four days\u2019 work.\u201d Cheap coloured glass, imported from China, had been turning up in the shops on the glass-blowing island of Murano \u2013 complete with stickers saying \u2018Made in Murano, Venice,\u2019 quadrupling its value. A Carabinieri raid on a warehouse in Mestre had netted over fifty thousand fake pieces, with another hundred thousand stickers waiting to be affixed to future consignments. Needless to say, the families who had been selling the imports were blaming an \u2018administrative error\u2019 \u2013 an error which had just happened to net them over five million pounds in profits, although of the money men who creamed off most of it there was, as usual, no sign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all right. I\u2019ve spoken to Colonel Piola and he\u2019s happy to finish up without you. It was the prosecutor who suggested your name, incidentally, but the colonel and I are both confident that you\u2019re ready to run this investigation on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMay I ask what the case concerns, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a homicide,\u201d Saito said tersely. That in itself was surprising \u2013 it was customary to preface such terms, at least in the early stages of an investigation, with the words \u2018Possible\u2019 or \u2018Alleged\u2019. \u201cWe\u2019ll discuss budgets and manpower later but it\u2019s clearly going to be a large investigation. In the meantime, I\u2019m assigning Sottotenente Bagnasco to be your administrative assistant. She also comes highly recommended, but given that she\u2019s new to the team let me know how she gets on. And use Colonel Piola as a sounding board for anything you\u2019re not sure about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, sir.\u201d She wondered if it was appropriate to say thank you. \u201cAnd thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt you\u2019ll be grateful for this one, capitano<\/em>,\u201d Saito said darkly, before he rang off.<\/p>\n

She edged the boat right up to the jetty. Most passengers would automatically have jumped out to secure a line, but Bagnasco still appeared too seasick to help, although she recovered somewhat once she was on dry land again. The entire beach seemed to turn to stare as they walked up through the bathers. It felt odd to be fully dressed amongst so much bare flesh, Kat thought; but of course it was their uniforms that were attracting the attention, not just the fact that they were both women. Sun and<\/em> a murder: it was hardly surprising that nobody was bothering with their books this morning.<\/p>\n

At the taped-off perimeter they paused to put on the microfibre suits and face masks that would prevent any of their own hairs or DNA from contaminating the scene. There was already a team of four technicians here, as well as the medical examiner, a photographer and three Carabinieri on crowd control, whom she recognised as being from the station across the Lido at Riviera San Nicolo.<\/p>\n

Nodding to them, she went inside the forensic tent. It was incredibly hot. The combination of the blazing sun on the tent\u2019s plastic roof, and the microfibre overalls over her uniform, made her instantly long for the slight breeze that had been coming off the sea. She felt sweat prickle down her spine, and forced herself to concentrate on what she was looking at.<\/p>\n

Dr Hapardi got up from his position squatting beside the body so that she could see. The corpse was lying just where the sea met the sand, so that from the waist down it was in shallow water. It was a man, his trousers rolled up above the knees as if he had been wading. His chest was bare, and a length of rope was wound over one shoulder and arm. His throat had been cut open, all the way from one clavicle to another \u2013 the head was thrown back at an angle so that the wound gaped obscenely wide: Kat could make out the severed oesophagus, already half-filled with sand, which suggested that he\u2019d been her since the tide was a little higher. But shocking though that was, it was the thing on the man\u2019s face that drew her gaze. Beneath the sodden, greying hair his eyes were covered with a curious-looking mask of leather and cloth, not unlike an old-fashioned pair of motorcycle goggles, but with solid metal cups where the eyepieces should be.<\/p>\n

To one side, on a sheet of plastic, was a sandy-looking object the size of a tennis ball. It was this which Hapardi had been examining with a dental probe when they entered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of mask is that?\u201d Kat said, pushing aside her face mask to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s called a hoodwink,\u201d Hapardi said heavily. Normally immune to the sights and smells of death, he seemed almost dazed. \u201cHere.\u201d Reaching down, he pressed a small lever at the top of the\u00a0 mask, and the eyepieces sprung open. Behind her, she sensed Bagnasco jump. The dead man\u2019s eyes, piercingly grey, stared up at them accusingly. \u201cIt\u2019s used in rituals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho found him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did.\u201d Hapardi nodded to where, some way off outside the tent, a good-looking young man was talking to one of the local Carabinieri. He, too, seemed very pale.\u00a0 \u201cOr at least, his dog.\u201d There was a small lapdog, some kind of dachshund, tucked under the arm of an older man who was standing next to him. They looked like a couple. The Lido had long had a reputation as being one of the most gay-friendly parts of Venice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow come?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

Hapardi crouched again and indicated the sandy object. \u201cHe picked this up and carried it back to his owner.\u201d<\/p>\n

She still couldn\u2019t work out what the object he was pointing to was. \u201cWhat is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hapardi unrolled it with the tip of the dental probe. \u201cThe victim\u2019s tongue,\u201d he said quietly.<\/p>\n

Behind Kat, there was a choking sound. She turned. Vomit was spilling from the sides of Bagnasco\u2019s forensic mask. The second lieutenant yanked the mask away from her face and bent down towards the sea, retching.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll need to give Dr Hapardi a DNA sample, for elimination purposes,\u201d Kat said, when the other woman had finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all right,\u201d Hapardi said. He indicted the vomit where it had splashed onto the damp sand. \u201cI\u2019ll take a swab from this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry,\u201d Bagnasco whispered. \u201cI just\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hot in here. Go and get some fresh air,\u201d Kat ordered. When Bagnasco had gone, she turned back to the medical examiner. \u201cSorry about that. I think it\u2019s her first murder case.\u201d She gestured at the body. \u201cSo if the tongue was placed next to the body, he must have been killed elsewhere and brought here by boat, right? But why? Why not just throw him over the side out in deep water?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the oath,\u201d Hapardi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat oath?\u201d<\/p>\n

The medical examiner wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. \u201c<\/em>I do most solemnly promise and swear,\u201d he said in a low, sing-song voice. \u201cWithout the least equivocation, mental reservation, or self evasion of mind whatsoever; binding myself under no less penalty than to have my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by the roots, and my body buried in the rough sands of the sea at low watermark, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours, not to reveal the secrets I shall learn.\u201d He looked Kat in the eye. \u201cI don\u2019t know who this man is, capitano<\/em>, but I\u2019ll lay you very good odds that he was a freemason.\u201d<\/p>\n

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