She snorted. "If you hadn't held us up, we'd be the other side of Campo San Polo by now. And you can't be in any more of a hurry to get back to whatever rat-hole you sleep in, than I am to see the back of you. I should never have agreed to take you."

Benito huddled down in the bow. This woman's tongue was even sharper-edged than Maria Garavelli's. The wind between the ornately facaded buildings was cold. He was cold and, as usual, he was hungry. It had been a fruitless night. Mercutio had let him down. Again.

He liked working jobs with Mercutio. His ideas were exciting, daring and, well, crazy. You always knew with any job he organized it was going to be nip-and-tuck. Skin of your teeth stuff and needing lots of luck. But somehow Mercutio always seemed to have that luck.

Benito sighed. Mercutio also had the habit of not turning up for a job. Benito had sat waiting for four cold hours for him tonight, and not a copper's profit to show for it. He could have used some more coin. All he had in the attic was a half crock of elderly fagioli stufata. It was definitely past its best. The beans were producing gas before they even hit his stomach.

His eye was caught by the body. It bobbed in the dark water under the pilings as the tiny fish plucked at it. That was a fine cloak… A few knife slashes could be dealt with. His jaw dropped. The rich soft swollen white hand still had rings on it.

He turned to speak.

"Don't even look," she hissed between clenched teeth.

"But…" he started to point.

She hit his hand with the oar. "Shut it!" There was such intensity in that quiet command that Benito didn't even dare to glance at the corpse again.

They poled on in silence, the bow of the shabby gondola cutting the oily, still water, here where it was sheltered from the predawn breeze. Most of Venice was still sleeping.