The Mosaic

Chapter 1

The sun was shining warmly and Alessandro wanted a damn sheet over that dead artist.

He almost felt its glassy eyes following him around, their empty glance tickling his neck whenever he turned his back on the corpse. They were scrutinizing his inability to see what they had seen.

Today's wake-up call had been the most unpleasant of his life — though he groaned that to himself every morning. The double winged bedroom door had banged open, a messenger burst through and screamed.

Only after the messenger had sucked in large gasps of air and steadied his trembling body on a drawer the tall blond had managed to make out what the stranger was stammering. Murder.

Technically, suddenly being called to a crime scene from his family's palace was nothing unusual. However, not when the sun just floated a hair's width above the horizon of a dark, still sea. After all, corpses could wait, it wasn't like they would go anywhere.

But this death was different. A genius artist, dead in the villa of Venice's celebrated war hero. Skull shattered like a thin vase, toppled over the edge of a table by an accidental brush of an elbow. That's what the guards waiting told Alessandro it was. An accident.

Alessandro huffed. It was no accident. He knew that much after the many hours he had spent pacing the hall. The artist's workplace was crammed with everything he needed and more. If he had indeed slipped and fallen off the platform, there would be at least one sketch crumpled or a tool box knocked over near the edge. But there wasn't.

This immaculate order was what had wiggled beneath Alessandro's skin and gnawed at it from below. Around the edges, the tools had been laid out more orderly than the perfect stacks of paperwork on Alessandro's desk. But in the middle, where the artist must have crouched, was a mess. Everything had just been thrown around and knocked over and shoved aside. As if he had been looking for something ...

He had sent his men out long ago, ordering them to report an accident. Yet he had stayed behind. Alvino had not slipped, Alessandro knew it. But why jump? His men had questioned everyone: maids, the artist's wife, the General Zeno himself. All said the same:  Alvino had no reason to kill himself. He frowned, lips pressing into a sour line.

"You'll have terrible wrinkles when you're older."

Alessandro spun around. His hand flew to the sword at his side --

The other man held up his hands in mock surrender, possessing the audacity to laugh at the inspector. In all black the man leant against a column. White marble with intricate grey and silver swirls was a stark contrast to the simple black of a wide linen shirt.

He could have been a shadow, hadn't he decided to speak up. Who knew how long he might have stood there.

Alessandro slowly looked him up and down. He wore riding boots, speckled with mud at the edges, still wet — just returned from a ride, had features as if cut with a razor blade, tanned skin — southern descend, much time spent outside, he noted, messy black curls -- in a rush to get here, even if he acted so laid back now, he hadn't even brushed them. Quick green eyes. A fine silver cross necklace around his neck.