The English Assassin

and had no label. Her hand shook as she poured out two glasses.
    “My husband was very good with his hands,” the signadora said. “He was a cobbler and a mason. He used to work sometimes for Don Tomasi in the next valley. Have you heard of the Tomasi clan?”
    The Englishman nodded and sipped his wine. They were still notorious troublemakers.
    “Don Tomasi hired my husband to build a new wall around his garden. It was a thing of beauty, I assure you, but Don Tomasi said it was flawed and refused to pay my husband for his work. They quarreled violently, and the don ordered a pair of his gunmen to drag my husband off his property. It’s still there, by the way.”
    “The wall around the garden?”
    “Indeed!” The old woman drank some wine and gathered herself for the rest of the story. “My husband was a good worker, but he was a gentle man. An agnello. Do you know this term?”
    “A lamb.”
    The signadora nodded. “He was not the kind of man to fight with his fists or a knife. Word of his treatment at the hands of Don Tomasi spread through the village. My husband became a laughingstock. Two nights after the incident he was baited into a fight in the square. He suffered a stab wound in his abdomen and died.”
    Something flashed behind the old woman’s eyes. Anger. Hatred.
    “Clearly, blood vengeance was required,” she said calmly. “But who? The oaf who murdered my husband in the square? He was not the one who was truly responsible for his death. It was Don Tomasi who had blood on his hands. But how was I supposed to kill Don Tomasi? He lived in a large house on the top of a hill, surrounded by vicious dogs and armed men. There was no way for me to kill him! So I went to see Anton Orsati’s father, and I hired a taddunaghiu to do the deed for me. It cost me every bit of money I had, but it was worth it. The taddunaghiu slipped through Don Tomasi’s defenses and slit his throat while he slept—killed him like the pig that he was. Justice was done.”
    She reached across the table and laid her palm on the back of his hand.
    “Sometimes, Christopher, a taddunaghiu can do good things. Sometimes, he can right a terrible wrong. Sometimes, he can dispense justice as well as vengeance. Remember the things I’ve told you.”
    “I will,” he said.
    He gave her a thick roll of money. Without looking at it, the old woman said, “It’s too much. It’s always too much.”
    “You give me peace. Peace is priceless.”
    He stood up to leave, but she grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. “Sit with me while I drink my wine. I still miss my husband, you know. Even after all these years.”
    And so he sat there, watching the candlelight flickering in the creases of her face, while she finished the last of the wine. Then her eyes closed and her chin fell forward onto her chest.
    The Englishman carried her upstairs and laid her gently in her bed. She awoke briefly. Her hand reached up, and she fingered the talisman hanging from his neck: the red coral hand. Then she touched his face and drifted back to sleep.
    He went downstairs and climbed into his jeep, then drove to Calvi and boarded the first ferry for Marseille. There, he collected a car Orsati had left for him near the waterfront and set out for Venice.

36
    VENICE
     
    T HEITALIAN PRESShad come alive. There was an avalanche of speculation about which pieces Anna Rolfe would perform. Would she attempt her signature piece, Giuseppe Tartini’s demonic sonata, “The Devil’s Trill?” Surely, the music writers speculated, Miss Rolfe would not try such a difficult composition after being away from the stage for so long.
    There were appeals to move the recital to a larger venue. It was scheduled to take place in the upper hall of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, a room which seated only six hundred, and competition for tickets had deteriorated into something of a scrum among the Venetian well-to-do. Zaccaria Cordoni, the promoter, refused to consider moving the recital, though in an effort to preserve his good standing in Venice he adroitly laid blame at the feet of Anna Rolfe. Miss Rolfe had requested a small venue, he said, and he was a mere prisoner to the demands of the artist. A magazine with Socialist leanings printed a hysterical editorial arguing that once again music had been hijacked by the moneyed classes. It called for demonstrations outside the San Rocco on the night of the concert. Fiona Richardson, Anna Rolfe’s agent and manager,