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is he?”
    “Cranky as ever. Here, have a seat, it’s good to see you. It must be . . . what, three years?”
    “About that, I should think.”
    Den shook his head in disbelief. “Where does the time go? You’re looking well. And Bryan? How is he? The two of you are still . . . ? Yeah? Well, that’s great.” He raised his glass in a salute. “You’re an example to us all, you and Bryan. I don’t know how you do it. My wife’s become an ex-wife since I saw you, did you hear?”
    “I did, yes,” Rupert said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Nothing to be sorry for, she knew what she was doing. I’m no good at being married. And besides, she’s less expensive this way—no more bills from Bloomingdale’s.” His blue eyes laughed, without regret. “This being single isn’t bad, you know. It has its . . .”—and he looked at me—“its compensations.”
    Rupert smiled and warned him, “Careful, Dennis. That’s my little girl you’re leering at.”
    “Was I leering? Sorry, force of habit. Let’s order a drink, then, OK?” He hailed the waiter.
    Rupert surprised me by ordering Scotch. Unlike Bryan, Rupert rarely drank anything stronger than tea in the daytime. He leaned back in his chair, taking up the dropped reins of the conversation. “So, Dennis, where are you staying?”
    He named the hotel. “Little place down an alley near the train station. I always stay there. D’Ascanio offered to put me up at the same hotel where he’s got you, but I have kind of a loyalty thing going with the place I’m in, and anyway I’ve gotten so I like my hotels cheap and cheerful. Makes the trip more interesting. Besides, I won’t have to drag my luggage too far in the morning. What time does our train leave, do you know?”
    Rupert said, “Not offhand. I left the schedule back at the hotel. I know it’s early, though. Supposedly the tickets will be waiting for us at the station, young D’Ascanio has it all arranged.”
    “Then I’m sure the tickets will be there. He’s done a pretty good job of arranging things so far. Have you met him? What’s he like?”
    “He seems a decent chap, and very keen.”
    “Yeah, that was my impression on the phone. We’ll see.” Lifting his beer, Den leaned back in his chair and directed another quick smile at me. “But here it is your first visit to Venice—it is your first visit? And we’re spoiling it by talking shop.”
    I didn’t mind, and told him so, but he refused to be convinced.
    “No, we’ll have to stop. Have you been inside the basilica? The Doge’s Palace? Seen the Bridge of Sighs?” When I shook my head to all of them he turned a half-accusing eye on Rupert. “What the heck have you done with her all day, then?”
    “We took a gondola to the Rialto.”
    “Gondolas.” Den gave a shudder.
    “You don’t like them?” I asked.
    “Let’s just say I think Oscar Wilde hit the nail on the head when he said seeing Venice from a gondola was like being ferried through the sewers in a coffin.”
    I’d always liked Oscar Wilde’s wit. “But it wasn’t like that, really. It was lovely. Very peaceful.”
    “And since when is a holiday meant to be peaceful?” Den grinned.
    I would have smiled back, but something in the way Rupert was watching me over the rim of his glass made me reconsider, and I couldn’t help feeling that somehow the peace of our trip had already been broken.

viii
    I’D been right to think Den was the Henry the Fifth type. When we’d finished our drinks he took charge with military zeal, touring us round all the buildings that ringed the Piazza San Marco. At first Rupert appeared to be happy enough to relinquish the lead and fall back in the ranks—he directed much better from that angle, anyway, where he could see the whole picture—but it soon became apparent that he hadn’t entirely surrendered his command.
    A sort of competition had developed as we went along, with Den and Rupert trying to outdo each other in the tour