In London, Where The Vampires Sing

Prologue

Standing on the banks of the yeasty Thames he surveyed the wondrous prospect and could feel his dead heart beating. Tall ships swayed in the breeze and wherries and tilt boats passed on their way from Gravesend propelled by the course of kind billows; burly men unloaded their goods with shouts of Hollo! Ho! to the carters and tradesmen while doffing their caps as Masters set off for Custom House to write their bills. Giardini knew of no other life than this and though the scene could not compare to standing at the top of St Mark's and looking towards the azure coloured hills of Padua, the hubbub of commerce felt the same. The mass of London thrilled him, this giant city at the centre of the world could rival Venice in its pomp; even without the colour and the constant music emanating from the palaces along the Grand Canal, London had its own grandeur.

      As the rain fell and the clouds amassed overhead, the Thames appeared silty and he pictured the Venice lagoon with its deep blue-green water dappled with sunlight, glittering like gold floating in a glass of Rosolio. Ah Rosolio, the favoured drink of the drabs; the urge to tumble with whores had brought Giardini to this rank, discarded, corner of the city where life was left to rot unseen, away from the eyes of those too ignorant to acknowledge its existence.

      He turned from the Thames and followed the course of the Fleet ditch, stuttering on the greasy road and moving gingerly around the offal, catguts, and the waste of industry collecting in natural furrows along the route. Towards the side of the road dead animals littered hollows worn away by carts, and muddy footprints trod over day after day with heavy impressions, created puddled craters. Walking away from the burning fumes of the effluent water, he rushed towards Saffron Hill, where he slipped into the One Ton tavern and was greeted by Fisher the landlord who called him Signor Giardini, placed an ale upon the table and asked if he would like a meat pie Sirrah? He felt slightly insulted and nodded dismissively. These English were friendly, but always superior; they walked fast and had wit enough for a whole continent; they were inventive, industrious, but at times lazy. Their women were always finely turned out, but with an overuse of patches and a lack of restraint, he could only regard their coquettish ways with disdain. The grandees were extravagant and filled their homes - and their stomachs - with luxurious objects, fine stuffs, and exotic food, but without them he would not be in this city, he would not have the money to spend on whores. His life at sea began with transporting the finest Venetian goods to the Levant, to Marseilles and along Italy's coastal lands to Palermo and Leghorn; but London soon became his most frequent destination. And now he was the Captain of a ship proudly displaying the Cremona arms, ferrying dazzling glass beads, crystal drinking glasses, brimstone and sham pearls from the tradesman of Venice to the rich men of rank and the burgeoning meritocracy of the City of London; in exchange the Venetians filled their markets with English tin, lead, bees-wax and fine stockings.

      When he emerged from the One Ton tavern, holding the coins he had gained from his Captain’s office, quivering with the pleasure of ale and the anticipation of fine legs, it was twilight; the bone gatherers and rag pickers were still about their business rummaging in narrow courts and passages, and sifting through the middens of fragile tenements.

     Under rickety stairs wretched women lay upon the ground soporific with the fumes of gin; thieves collected around their skirts searching through their pockets - the low of humanity feasting on the lowest. Then they disappeared behind secret doors and dark passages into their squalid habitations and inns watching Giardini with suspicious eyes. He did not fear their hidden knifes and festering anger; he did not fear the whores who would cut his throat if he caught them stealing from his clothes - it had been a long time since he had feared anything.

   Turning into a deserted Black Boy Alley, dogs barked at him and inhabitants groaned and screamed, blasting the joyless sound of living from tenements overhanging the alley; from the cacophony he distinguished the utterance of something familiar, not the wind playing with his senses, but a siren whispering his name; he stopped and listened again.

    'Antonio,' the voice whispered.

   From one of the courts the voice echoed along the alley pulling him towards it with the urge of curiosity and the recognition of someone he had once known. When he walked forward, stepping ever closer to the source, he heard his name again, a whisper from all directions. He turned around and faced one way and then another, but the corners of the alley were disappearing into blackness. He stepped into the court and waited within its blind edges; at the centre stood a woman looking towards the far wall, her black dress indistinct and her figure familiar. When she turned towards him, Giardini felt a large hand grab his face from behind, he wrestled with it but could not escape the assailant. Then fear returned like a distant childhood memory rushing towards him, flying on the intensity of a woman plunging a dagger deep into the centre of his chest. He remembered her, the bitter angry eyes, softened with tears of pain fading to an ever decreasing dot followed by eternal blackness.

      In the tenements where the whores worked, they heard nothing. They were numb to the sounds and screams of living, each one of them a murderer if necessary. They did not notice the couple burying Antonio Giardini's body in the waste ground or flinging his head into the Chick Lane gully hole; they have buried countless bodies on the same stretch of ground before and no one has ever found them.