“Goodness.” I looked up, alarmed. “Assassins have their own street in Venice?”

“Of course. How else would you find them if you needed one?”

I checked to see if he was joking. He seemed quite serious. “Not today, surely?” I examined the quiet surroundings, the peeling shutters closed against the midday heat, the ubiquitous pigeons sitting on porches.

He gave a little shrug.

“But what about the police?”

“I’m sure they need assassins, too, from time to time.”

“You are pulling my leg, Leo.” I laughed.

“I am not touching your leg. Although I would like to.”

“It’s another—”

“I know. English expression. Your language is crazy, you know. We must only speak Italian from now on.”

“I’m doing rather well in Italian these days,” I said. “I have to chat with my landlady over meals and of course in all my classes.”

“Does she speak pure Italian and not Venetian? I don’t want you to learn bad things.”

“She’s originally from Turin, so she speaks Italian to me.”

“Good.” He got up again. “I will leave you to your sketching. I must get back to work. We have a big project. Bianca’s father has an order for ships from Mussolini himself, and we have the task of ferrying supplies to the army across the Mediterranean and around to Abyssinia.”

“To the war?”

He nodded. “My father and father-in-law have no hesitation in profiting from such things, so it would seem.”

“But you would?”

“Let us say I would think very hard before I agreed.” He was about to walk away, then turned back to me. “Will you come and watch me row on Sunday?”

“You are rowing? Where?”

“The regatta at the big festival. You don’t know about it?”

I shook my head.

“One of the most important in our city. The Feast of the Redentore. It celebrates when we were saved from the plague in the 1500s. In the afternoon there are all sorts of rowing races. I shall compete in the two-man boat—not very successfully, I fear, but my cousin signed me up. He is younger and fitter than I am. Then everyone walks across the bridge to the Church of the Redentore for Mass—”

“Where is that?” I asked, now familiar with many of the churches but not that one.

“Over on Giudecca.”

I frowned, trying to place this. “But there is no bridge. It’s an island.”

“There will be a bridge on Sunday.” He looked pleased with himself, as if he was enjoying surprising me. “They build a bridge of barges all the way across from the Zattere, and people walk across to Mass, and then they picnic with their families and watch the fireworks. You must come. You’ll enjoy it.”

“I’ve no family to picnic with,” I pointed out.

“Your new friends from the academy. They will enjoy it, too.”