“Yes,” Mrs Siankung said quietly, at the same time as Madame d’Ortolan shouted, “Enough of this!”

Bisquitine seemed to ignore them both. She stuck one finger sharply up into the air, narrowly missing the eye of the handler towelling her hair. “To the Rialto, me hearties! Realty bound! Tally fucking prostimitute!”

Madame d’Ortolan looked at Professore Loscelles. “The Rialto. That’s close, isn’t it?”

“Five minutes away,” he told her.

Mrs Siankung patted Bisquitine’s hand. “We’ll get you dressed,” she started to say.

“No, we won’t,” Madame d’Ortolan said, standing. “Bring her as she is. It’s warm out.” She looked sourly round them all. Only Professore Loscelles appeared like himself or well enough turned out to be presentable. “We can’t look any more ridiculous than we do already.”

It looks like all humanity is packing the Rialto; the bridge over the Grand Canal is compact but massive, sturdy yet elegant. Two lines of small packed shops are separated by the broad central way whose surface is composed of flights of shallow grey-surfaced steps edged with the same cream-coloured marble found throughout the city. Behind the shops two further walkways face up and down the canal, linked to the pitched street of the central thoroughfare at either end and the centre. The walkway facing south-west is the busier as it provides a longer, more open view down the Canal and the bustle of boats plying its milky blue-green waters.

They’ve left the Palazzo Chirezzia. The thing, the person, the nexus of sheer terrifying weirdness is on the move, and so is practically everybody else who was still there, including Madame herself and the Prof. They’re a minute away; they can probably see the bridge by now.

My mobile phone goes and I start to answer it, seeing that it’s Adrian. The display blinks off. The phone won’t come back to life. I shove it in a pocket and start up the slope of the Rialto with the rest of the tourist crowd.

“When, sir? Why, sir. I’ll tell you when, then; between the Quilth of Octoldyou-so and the Nonce of Distember, THAT’S JOLLY WELL WHEN!” Bisquitine’s shout echoed off the surrounding buildings.

“Hush, my dear,” Mrs Siankung said, conscious of the stares they were attracting.

They were on the Ruga Orefici, within sight of the Rialto. Bisquitine padded happily along in the midst of their motley collection of ungainly bodies and unfortunate clothing styles. She wore the same towelling robe she’d been wrapped in after her shower and had been persuaded into a pair of panties but had adamantly refused shoes or even slippers. She hugged the gown about her, looked round at the various shops with their excitingly bright displays and tried unsuccessfully to whistle.

The smell of a bakery distracted her as the square in front of San Giacomo di Rialto opened out to their left.

“Still hungry!” she cried out.

“I know, dear,” Mrs Siankung said, trying to keep an arm round the girl’s waist. “We’ll eat soon.”

“Wot you lookin at then, squire?” Bisquitine said in a deep voice as two bronze-skinned teenage girls passed by, staring and then laughing at her. “Pop a crap on yo petal, bitches, upside ya head. An no mitsake, mistake, mystique, Mustique. I meant that.”

“Shush now, dear.”

“Claudia?” a man said suddenly, stepping right in front of Bisquitine. She had to stop, as did the others. The man was tall. He wore sunglasses, had salt-and-pepper hair, wore a suit and carried a briefcase. He took the sunglasses off, frowned, eyes screwing up as he stared into Bisquitine’s eyes.

“ Ill met by sunlight, my good fellow,” Bisquitine said haughtily. “Why, I’ve half a mind to scratch the boundah!”

The man looked confused and concerned in equal measure. “Claudia?” he asked. “Is that you? You were supposed to be at-” He took a step back, taking in the knot of people obviously with this woman who looked like somebody he knew and yet was not her. “Hey, what the hell’s-”

Mr Kleist didn’t wait for the nod from Madame d’Ortolan. He stepped up to the man, saying. “Sir, if I may explain…” and did a straight-finger jab into his throat. Gasping, eyes wide, unable to speak, clutching his gullet, the man staggered back. It had been done so quickly that it seemed nobody had noticed. “I’ll catch you up,” Mr Kleist told the others quietly. He squatted as he made the man sit down on the road surface, still wheezing and struggling for air. Madame d’Ortolan glared at Mr Kleist but he couldn’t just leave the man making that noise. He told himself that he was lingering here because he needed to make sure the man stayed down, out of action, not likely to follow them, but really it was to stop him making that terrible choking, gasping noise; to ease him. He pinched the fellow’s neck, attempting to reopen his windpipe. The man tried to bat his hand away. A crowd of people had formed around them and he heard somebody call for the carabinieri. The man made a series of terrible gagging, strangling, sucking noises.

Bisquitine glanced back as they hurried away. “Dat gotta hurt, sho nuff. I’d get some cream on that. Trot on!”

“Dearest,” Mrs Siankung said, “please. We’re nearly there. Very soon.”

“When, sir? Why, sir. I’ll tell you when, then; somba tyme atwixt da the Quilth of Oncoldyou-such and zee Chonce of Plastemper; tankums, wilcums, noddinks, hurtsies. Oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-drear. Oh-dear-oh-drear-oh-drolldums. The backstroke? In these shoes? Have you taken leafs off your fences? Enough already. You muddy funster; you’re landfill.”

“I wish we could shut her up,” Madame d’Ortolan muttered to Professore Loscelles as they hurried up towards the broad shallow steps of the Rialto itself.

“I suspect-” the Professore began.

“Tuk-tuk, talkink in the ranks!” Bisquitine sounded affronted.

“There there, dearest,” Mrs Siankung said, patting her arm. She glanced back at Madame d’Ortolan.

“Noo,” Bisquitine intoned in her deep, masculine-sounding voice. “But quate appy to use this poor damaged creatchah for your own dimmed ignoble ends, midim. Ain’t dat de trute!”

“Bisq, shh!”

“Poor damaged creatchah, poor damaged creatchah…”

They had climbed almost to the summit of the Rialto, the crowds growing ever thicker and more chaotic. Madame d’Ortolan grasped Mrs Siankung’s arm. “Is he here?”

Bisquitine stopped suddenly, did a little dance and with one arm straight out pointing said triumphantly, “Bingo! Bandits ahoy, chumlets! Thar she blows!”

So I’m standing here at the very top of the very middle bit of the Rialto in Venice, feeling like a bit of a muppet and wondering what the chances are that this is some gigantic long-winded, long-game wind-up. (Except it can’t be, can it? All that monthis as standard instruction ey over the years was real enough, and the box Mrs M sent and Fred asked me to bring didn’t show up in my hand luggage when I went through Heathrow security, did it? Sailed past.) But anyway, that isn’t stopping me from getting that What-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here? feeling, even though, yes, it’s all very lovely in a sunny, chocolate-boxy, can’t-move-for-bleedin-tourists kind of a way, and here I go having to step away from the very top of the very centre bit yet again because yet another group of Japanese or Chinese or whatever tourists want to take a photograph of one of them standing at exactly that point, when this little bunch of frankly not very well dressed people come marching up the steps from the opposite direction I arrived from.

There’s a mousy bint in a white dressing gown in the middle of them, hair straggling everywhere, muttering to herself. Proper nutter. Then she sees me and sort of jogs on the spot and points and blabbers something, just as I feel a hand on my elbow, cupping it like a brandy glass but I don’t know which way to look because this lot with the lady in white at their centre are all fucking looking at me now and starting up the slope towards me while the person behind me holding my elbow says quietly, “Adrian? I’m Fred.”