The Secret Messenger. Mandy Robotham

      

      THE SECRET MESSENGER

      Mandy Robotham

       Copyright

      Published by AVON

      A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

      Copyright © Mandy Robotham 2019

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

      Cover photographs © Mary Evans Picture Library (Piazza San Marco, Venice), Elizabeth Ainsley/Trevillion images (woman), Shutterstock.com (flags, planes, sky)

      Mandy Robotham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008324261

      Ebook Edition © December 2019 ISBN: 9780008324254

      Version: 2020-02-20

       Dedication

       To my mum, Stella – a woman of stamina and enduring style

       Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Author’s note

      Prologue: Clowns

      Chapter 1: Grief

      Chapter 2: The Lion’s Den

Chapter 3: Bedding In

Chapter 4: Discovery

Chapter 5: A New Task

Chapter 6: Two Sides of the Coin

       Chapter 7: New Interest

       Chapter 8: Finding and Frustration

       Chapter 9: Drinks with the Enemy

       Chapter 10: A New Role

       Chapter 11: Casting Out

       Chapter 12: Opening Up

       Chapter 13: Story Time

       Chapter 14: A Voice from the Lagoon

       Chapter 15: Love and Fury

       Chapter 16: A Lull

       Chapter 17: On Hold

       Chapter 18: Small Talk

       Chapter 19: A Detour

       Chapter 20: Arrival

       Chapter 21: The City Cauldron

       Chapter 22: The Seeker

       Chapter 23: A Fiery Reaction

       Chapter 24: Across the Lagoon

       Chapter 25: A New Hope

       Chapter 26: Revenge

       Chapter 27: The Bloody Summer

       Chapter 28: Seeking and Waiting

       Chapter 29: Sorrow

       Chapter 30: A Low Ebb of the Tide

       Chapter 31: Playing Detective

       Chapter 32: A Parting

       Chapter 33: In Hiding

       Chapter 34: The Search for Coffee

       Chapter 35: Red-Handed

       Chapter 36: Taking Flight

       Chapter 37: Age and Enlightenment

       Chapter 38: After

       Chapter 39: Completion

       Chapter 40: The Typewriter

       Acknowledgements

       Keep Reading …

       About the Author

       By the Same Author

       About the Publisher

       Author’s note

      War is ugly. Wherever it strikes, it destroys people, families and places, decimates lives and precious objects. Yet being so widespread, conflict also happens in beautiful places, and it was that contrast of light and dark which prompted The Secret Messenger. For me, there is no more stunning or fantastical place on earth than Venice; since my first trip in 1990, I’ve been beguiled on countless visits by the idea of a city effectively floating. I’m still in awe of its very existence and its beauty.

      When I began to research how World War Two affected Venice, it became clear that historians were less captivated by its story of Resistance as perhaps in France or the Netherlands; that Venice, by comparison, had experienced a ‘soft’ war. What research I found seemed brief and factual, but those details of Venetian life – of how Venetians existed day by day – were scant. On a research trip (yes, of course, I needed to go back again!) I walked miles through Venetian calles, itching to know which areas of the city played their part in the fight against the Nazis and fascists combined.

      It wasn’t until my return home that I struck gold; a chance email launched into cyberspace sparked a reply from the wonderfully named Signor Giulio Bobbo, a historian at IVESER, the Venetian Institute for the History of Resistance and Contemporary Society. His own area of expertise? The Resistance in wartime Venice. It was like manna from heaven.

      Thanks to Giulio, his grounding in factual research and the nuggets of priceless detail about real life in wartime Venice, the book began to take shape. At last, I could see a Venice under the cloak of war. The more Giulio and I traded emails, the more my search seemed to run parallel to the quest