Present Day Isola Mario, Venice Tom Shaman's 'sighting' of Tina Ricci at the hippy commune threatens for a while to throw the entire raid off track. Finally – much to the amusement of many around him – he accepts that he may well have mistaken her for a very pretty but highly vacuous painter called Liza who was on kitchen duty at the time.
Mario's lawyer Ancelotti laps it all up. He gives Vito and Valentina hell until Vito is forced to proffer an apology to the billionaire before leading most of his unit out of the mansion.
Only Valentina and her team remain. She's with Franco Zanzotto, the head of security, and she's finding him immensely intimidating. Which is exactly what Franco wants.
He hates cops. Has done all his life. As a kid they were the sworn enemy, and he doesn't feel hugely different these days.
Zanzotto makes sure the pretty lieutenant sees him eyeing her up. Sees his gaze licking her all the way from her trim ankles to her slender neck – like she was the last ice-cream on sale in a desert.
Valentina tries to ignore him as they walk together down a long wood-panelled corridor. There are more important things to concentrate on.
They come to a dead-end. Blocked by two huge, arched oak doors.
'Unlock them, please.'
Zanzotto smiles lasciviously. 'My pleasure.' He selects the key from a heavy ring and unlocks brass padlocks at the top and bottom of the twin doors. He pulls back iron bolts and turns a key in a large brass lock.
The inside of the boathouse surprises Valentina.
It's vast.
'Wait!' she shouts to the officers behind her. 'Photographer first.'
A slim woman, smaller than Valentina, with short dark hair and bold brown eyes, opens a metal suitcase and lifts out a Nikon.
Zanzotto brushes shoulders with Valentina and whispers confidentially, 'I'd like to take photographs of you. Pictures both of us would never forget.'
Valentina can't keep the disgust from her face. 'I'm sure you would.' His presence makes her impatient. 'Come on, Maria, you should already have had that prepared!'
The photographer looks embarrassed.
The head of security moves close again. 'When you've finished here, how about I take you home and you model for me, then I model for you?'
She wafts away his garlicky breath. 'How about you shut up and let me do my job, or I arrest you for obstruction?'
He scowls at her but backs off. Bitch. Frigid cop bitch.
Valentina moves to the desk of monitors. They're turned off. 'What's this? What goes on here?'
Zanzotto shrugs.
She checks beneath the desk and puts plugs back in sockets. The screens fizzle into life. 'Shots of these too, Maria. Wide shots of the whole set-up, and then individual shots of each screen.'
She wanders away, wondering why you'd have a security control centre in a boathouse. You'd have cameras covering the boathouse, sure. But why have the master control in the boathouse? Valentina walks around. There are numerous coils of rope, fuel cans and fold-out metal tool boxes. On one wall, a heavy-duty pegboard supports a range of spanners and wrenches. Beneath it is a workbench and on it – her heart jumps – a chainsaw. She thinks of the dismembered corpses in the lagoon. Valentina looks around for an evidence officer. 'Bag and tag everything, especially the saw. Make sure you don't touch the blade.'
A young male officer sets about the task and she tries to calm herself, not get too excited.
There are numerous boats in the water. A speedboat worth ten times the value of her apartment. A state-of-the-art, solar-powered Czeers Mk1. A rubber dinghy with an outboard big enough to power a flight to Venus. A wooden rowing boat, probably used for fishing.
Playthings of the rich and famous.
Across the water something else catches her eye. Something far more interesting.
A gondola.
A sleek, black, silent seahorse of a craft. Every bit as beautiful as the powerboats, but oddly out of place in this collection. She motions towards a forensics officer. 'This – start with this. As soon as Maria's done her damned photographs, test the gondola for everything: blood, fibres, DNA, hairs, fingerprints. The whole damned lot.'