But I too can calculate, he mused. As you are about to discover. And when your weapons prove useless against me-what will you do then?

There was a buzz from the desk and his secretary’s voice said, ‘Signor Raffano is here.’

‘Send him in.’

Raffano was his financial adviser and also an old friend who’d known the family through many troubles. He’d been summoned to Salvatore’s office in the Palazzo Veretti to discuss urgent business. By the time he entered Salvatore had moved away from the window.

‘There’s more news,’ Salvatore said curtly, waving the other man to a chair.

Raffano was elderly with white hair and a gentle face. In his youth he’d been flamboyant, but the passing years had left him thinner and more serious.

‘You mean in addition to your cousin’s death?’ he enquired cautiously.

‘Antonio was my father’s cousin, not mine,’ Salvatore reminded him. ‘He was always a bit of a gadfly, likely to do stupid things without considering the consequences.’

‘He was known as a man who liked to enjoy himself,’ Raffano mused. ‘People said it proved him a true Venetian.’

‘That’s a slur on all Venetians. There aren’t many with his reckless disregard for everything except his own pleasures. He’d spend it, drink it or sleep with it, and to hell with the rest of the world.’

‘I will admit he should have taken more responsibility for the glass factory.’

‘Instead he put the whole thing in his manager’s hands, and vanished into the distance, to have fun,’ Salvatore said grimly.

‘Probably the shrewdest thing he could have done. Emilio is a brilliant manager, and I doubt if Antonio could ever have run the place so well himself. Let’s remember the best of him. He was popular and he’ll be greatly missed. Will his body be coming home for burial?’ Raffano asked.

‘No, I gather the funeral has already taken place in Miami, where he lived these last two years,’ Salvatore said. ‘It is his widow who will be coming to Venice.’