Read Online The Nosferatu Scroll by James Becker - Free Book Online Page A

it was.
    And then she screamed.

8
    The following morning, Bronson and Angela lingered over breakfast. Sitting at a corner table in the hotel’s small dining room, surrounded by the remains of their meal, they were trying to decide where to visit next in Venice. They’d already been to some of the principal attractions in the center of the city, and had spent an expensive but pleasant afternoon wandering around the Piazza San Marco, climbing to the top of the Campanile to take in the spectacular views that that vantage point offered. In fact, they both decided that they preferred the much smaller Piazzetta San Marco, the open space that lay on the south side of the piazza, near the Doge’s Palace, and which served as a connection between the piazza and the waters of the Grand Canal.
    “How about Murano?” Bronson suggested. “Glassmaking has always fascinated me. According to this guidebook, the demonstrations there are free, and that’s not a word you normally associate with Venice.”
    “That’s this island here, isn’t it?” Angela asked, pointing at the map in her own book.
    Bronson nodded. “Yes, though it’s actually a group of six islands, not just one. And apparently there are lots of interesting little shops and boutiques there which you can have a root around in. We can take a number forty-one or forty-two vaporetto from the Fondamente Nuove stop, and it’s not that far away—the next stop after San Michele, in fact.”
    But a few moments later, it became obvious to both of them that they weren’t going to be able to visit Murano or, at least, not that morning.
    The dining room door swung open, and the hotel receptionist peered inside. Spotting Bronson and Angela, she pointed them out to somebody waiting just outside. A moment later, two Italian police officers walked in, and crossed briskly to the table where they were sitting.
    “Signor Bronson?” the first officer asked.
    From the insignia on his uniform, Bronson guessed he was the equivalent of a sergeant, and the other man probably a constable. He nodded.
    The officer pulled out a notebook, flipped through it until he found what he was looking for, and glanced at something written on the page.
    “I understand you speak Italian,” he said, and Bronson nodded again. “Where were you last night?”
    “What?”
    “I asked where you were last night,” the police officer repeated.
    “I understood what you said,” Bronson said, “but I don’t know why you’re asking me this.”
    “There was an incident, and we are trying to establish the movements of anybody who might have been involved. It’s routine.”
    Bronson didn’t like the sound of that. In his experience, whenever a policeman assured a suspect that a particular line of questioning was “routine,” it usually meant that it was anything but.
    “What sort of incident?” he asked, deciding to play along. He knew he had absolutely nothing to worry about, whatever the “incident” might be. “I was here, in this hotel, after we got back from the Isola di San Michele. Then we went out for a late dinner, probably at about nine, and returned to the hotel just after eleven. We were in our room all night until about an hour ago, when we came down for breakfast.”
    The carabinieri officer noted down Bronson’s answer, then looked at him again. “Can anyone substantiate your account, Signor Bronson?”
    “I paid for the meal at the restaurant with a credit card,” he replied, “so that will establish where I was between about nine and eleven. After that, Angela and I were together, and as far as I’m aware nobody else saw us after we came back to the hotel.”
    The officer frowned, and Bronson could tell that his answers hadn’t satisfied him.
    “If you can tell me what incident you’re talking about, and the time it took place, we might be able to help.”
    The officer shrugged. “There was a break-in at the mortuary last night, and some damage was done.”
    “What’s he