I accepted, and Cort looked guiltily at his watch. 'Goodness, I shall be late,' he said, jumping up from his seat. 'Macintyre will be furious. Come and meet him. I expect you will hate each other on sight.'

He shouted a farewell through the door, jammed his hat on his head and headed off. I followed, saying, 'Why should I not like him? Or he me? I consider myself quite amiable normally.'

'You are a human being,' Cort replied. 'And thus to be detested. If you were made of steel, were you something that could be honed to perfection on a mechanical lathe, were your movements capable of accurate measurement to one-thousandth of an inch, then Macintyre might approve of you. Otherwise, I'm afraid not. He hates all of humanity, except for his daughter, whom he built himself out of gun metal and ball-bearings.'

'Yet he is assisting you?'

'Simply because there is a problem to be solved. He offered; I would never have asked even though he is the only person I know of here who is qualified to assist. Oh Lord. He's there already.'

We had turned the corner into the little street which contained the palazzo's entrance, and outside the heavy wooden doors which some forty-five minutes ago had been battered by Cort's frustrated head stood a man with a ferocious scowl on his red face.

Certainly friendly was not a word that sprang to mind. He had immensely broad shoulders, so wide that he barely fitted into his suit; he stood with legs apart, heavily-booted feet planted like trees in the mud. Hands thrust deeply into his pockets. He stamped a foot in frustration, turned and battered on the door with his fist before he saw us. 'Cort! Open this door! D'ye think I've no better things to do today?'

Cort sighed nervously as we approached. 'Good of you to show up,' Macintyre continued acidly. 'So kind of you to plan an amusement for me this morning. To fill my idle hours.'

'Sorry, sorry,' Cort muttered. 'The workers didn't show up again, you see.'

'And that has something to do with me?'

'No. Sorry. May I introduce Mr Stone? I have newly made his acquaintance.'

I held out a hand. Macintyre ignored it, gave me a cursory nod and renewed his assault on poor Cort, who stood there wanly.

'I'm conducting an important test this morning. And I postponed it, just to assist you. I would have thought the very least you could do would be . . .'

'Stop complaining,' I interjected suddenly, 'or the rest of your morning will be lost as well.'

Very rude of me, but not half as offensive as Macintyre was being. I calculated that he simply liked bullying people when he was in a foul mood, and that matching him, rude for rude, was the best way of dealing with the situation. Poor Cort was too cowed to do much to protect himself, and that was his choice, but I did not see why I had to endure it as well.

Macintyre's flow of eloquence dried up immediately. His mouth snapped shut and he turned his gaze – remarkably blue eyes, I noted, clear and large – on me. There was a heavy pause, and then he let out a loud 'Pfah!' and thrust his hands back into his pockets again. 'Very well,' he grumbled. 'Let us get on.'

Everything about him suggested a man of strength and character. Certainly he was uncouth, but England owns an excessive supply of the well bred and polite. Macintyre was a man to get things done, and they are much harder to find. He was not one to waste time on flattery, or to cover over awkward situations with a finely turned phrase. A man to avoid at a soirée, but invaluable in a battle – or a factory.

Cort, meanwhile, had fished out a huge key from his pocket and had unlocked the great and ancient door, pushing it open by leaning his whole frame against it. It gave way with a screech that sounded like the dead in torment, and Macintyre and I followed him in.

As in many Venetian palazzi (so I discovered), the entrance way gave onto a small courtyard; this was where the domestic business of the place had been conducted. On the other façade, giving directly onto the Rio di Cannaregio, was all the architectural finery to impress the passer-by. What that looked like I did not as yet know. But the sight from the courtyard was terrifying. I could just see that it was a building, of a sort, although it looked as though it had been hit by several cannon shells. Rubble lay all around, piles of brick and stone, lumps of wood. A rickety frame of wood had been erected around the structure, presumably to allow the workmen access, but it hardly looked capable of supporting the weight of more than one or two at a time. Half a dozen cats eyed us suspiciously from atop a pile of wood; that was the only sign of life.

Cort surveyed the mess sadly, I looked astonished, Macintyre paid it no attention whatsoever. He marched straight over to the scaffolding, scooping up a ladder as he went, and began climbing. Cort reluctantly followed, and I watched from the ground.

Macintyre was remarkably agile and fearless, some sixty or seventy feet in the air, skipping over crumbling masonry, occasionally bending down or kicking a lump of brickwork with his boot, sending fragments cascading down to the ground. I was about to go up and join them when he returned back to earth, looking only a little less grumpy than when he started. Cort followed a few moments later, somewhat more gingerly.

'Well?' asked Cort.

'Knock it down.'

'What?'

'The whole thing. Flatten it. Start again. Never seen such rubbish in my life. I'm surprised it's still standing.'

Cort looked alarmed. 'I'm commissioned to restore it, not demolish it,' he said. 'The owners bought a sixteenth-century palazzo, and that is what they want when I am finished.'

'They're idiots, then.'

'Maybe so. But the customer is always right.'

Macintyre snorted. 'The customer is never right. Ignore them, give them what they need, not what they think they want.'

'Nobody needs a palazzo in Venice,' Cort said a little pettishly, 'and when I am well-enough established, I might take your advice. For the moment, I have one client only and cannot afford to lose him by demolishing his house.'

'Wait then. And it will fall down anyway. Or if you prefer I could come back this evening.' He paused and surveyed the scene carefully. 'One small charge, in that corner where the two central load-bearing walls meet,' he pointed 'and there would be nothing left in the morning at all. Then you could show what sort of architect you really are.'

Cort blanched at the idea, then looked at him carefully. 'I never realised you had a sense of humour.'

'I don't. It's the most sensible course of action,' Macintyre said gruffly, as though offended at the very idea of whimsy. 'But if you are resolved to waste your clients' money for them . . .'

'I am quite determined.'

'Then what you need is a supporting framework of girders. Three by six should do it. Inches, I mean. Tapering to two and a half by four on the upper floors. Perhaps less; I'll have to do the calculations. Extending up the back and side walls to form a framework inside the structure. That will take the weight of the roof, not the walls, which are too weak to support it. You'll have to build down to dissipate the weight under the level of the foundations . . .'

He paused and looked thoughtful. 'I suppose it does have foundations?'

Cort shook his head. 'Doubt it,' he replied. 'For the most part these buildings rest on wooden piles and mud. That's why the walls are so thin. If they were too heavy they'd sink.'

Macintyre pursed his lips and rocked forwards and backwards in thought. He was enjoying himself, I observed. 'In that case, you'll need to sink some, but at an angle to the vertical, to take the weight of the girders and roof and spread it outwards. Otherwise you'll just push the walls out instead. What you need, y'see, is an internal frame, so that the walls can be little more than a curtain covering the real business.'