Someone slipped outside, making the boat rock. Then they were mobile, gliding silently across the darkened water towards a wall towering over them like the face of a cliff. A distant streetlamp, hidden from where they had been moored, cast its pallid flickers on the scene. By its light they could make out Mino Martufò crouched on the foredeck, hauling in the sodden hempen rope which he had secured to a mooring post on the other bank of the canal on their arrival three hours earlier. As the unmarked motor launch came alongside, its bow nudging the inflatable rubber dinghy tied up by the crumbling steps greasy with weed and mud, the Sicilian leapt ashore and made fast to a rusty ring-bolt in the wall. He then held the launch alongside the steps while Zen and Pia Nunziata disembarked. Bettino Todesco drew his service revolver and covered Zen as he mounted the steps and pushed open the massive water-door at the top. ‘Wait here,’ he whispered to the others. Once inside, the darkness was complete.
