The Memory Key (8 page)

‘It’s too cold to talk,’ said Blume, who could feel his lower jaw beginning to tremble. ‘I’m going back to my car.’

The rain had turned the piazza outside into a broad lake. While some motorists felt the best way of getting through was to pretend their cars were jet-skis, others became extremely cautious and stopped dead at the water’s edge, unsure whether to proceed. It took him half an hour just to get down Via Regina Margherita, and then another half hour to drive upstream past a long line of motionless trams, past the commuters who had abandoned them and now walked like protesters down the middle of the road. But he didn’t really mind. He had the hot air on full, and aimed at his feet. He had got used to the smell of wet leather and the musty stink of the floor mat, and was simply enjoying the sensation of the rubbery heat rising up his body. The radio was playing a long intricate piece of funk by Solomon Burke. Occasionally, he would turn the vent dial and direct the warm air over the windscreen to demist it. The rain was light enough to keep the wipers on intermittent. He felt so snug in the car with the music, that he almost welcomed the traffic jams. Passing by pedestrians trying to wrap themselves up like bears, then leaping like gazelles over the oily pools of water overlapping the kerbs and footpaths, he was almost tempted to offer someone a lift in his nice warm car.

His phone rang. It would be Caterina wondering where he was. She was probably stuck in traffic, too, though she had started out from a better location about half an hour earlier. He hoped she wouldn’t ask him to pick up something in the supermarket. Reluctantly he turned down the music.

But it was Principe. ‘Are you home with the wife or still stuck in traffic?’

‘Stuck in traffic. She’s not my wife, Filippo.’

‘You should correct that. Don’t end up alone like me.’

‘You called me to say that?’ said Blume.

‘I called you up to talk about the traffic. About Manfellotto, too. I saw you in there. She fascinates you. I mean as a case. You know, I was thinking, maybe someone she knew in 1979, someone she remembers as a young man, is the person who just tried to kill her. We need to get her to mention the names of all her neo-Fascist
camerati
. Did you notice how cooperative she seems? Maybe you should go to interview her again, try and dig out all the names she has stored in there.’

‘Are you afraid I am not involved enough?’

‘Oh, OK, sorry. I just want you to keep monitoring the developments. You haven’t met Captain Zezza. I’ll need to arrange that.’

‘I expect he’s busy doing real police work.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You know exactly what I mean. The Carabinieri will be following protocol and logic. This captain examining Sofia’s murder will be checking out all her actions immediately before the event. He’ll be questioning the people she met, spoke to, was seen by. But you know this, since he is reporting to you.’

‘All that you say is true.’ Principe sounded offended. ‘But I don’t understand your tone.’

‘You phone me to remind me of what I am supposed to do, but aren’t you the one losing focus? You should be prioritizing Sofia. Keep your focus on the most recent events. Otherwise, they will slip out of memory, evidence will be destroyed, alibis will be built, and other cases will distract your attention. You thought to draw me deeper in with this Stefania Manfellotto, but I had already given you my word.’

‘I phoned for a chat about the terrible traffic . . . I am following the proper procedures, and the Carabinieri I am working with are good. Tomorrow I’ll be talking with the last people to have seen Sofia, as well as with her parents and her cousin Olivia. You might have seen them arrive at the crime scene the other night.’

Blume recalled a young woman with straight hair weeping uncontrollably, her boyfriend’s arms wrapped around her.

‘The fun of disobeying Questore De Rossi wore off a while ago. This is starting to feel like unpaid work.’

‘All your investigative work is unpaid. If you sat at your desk all day and did nothing, they’d pay you the same.’

‘They’d probably promote me faster, too,’ said Blume. ‘I’m hanging up now, Filippo. I am almost home.’

‘Speak soon.’

All the warmth was blown off him as he stepped out of his car, three blocks from Caterina’s apartment (he doubted he could ever think of it as his), and thanks to passing traffic and wind, he was soaked again before he reached the building. No one answered the intercom. So he let himself in the front door and travelled up in the lift. Some bastard had been smoking in it and dropped the spent butt on to the wet floor. The damp air was laced with the nicotine and breath of the smoker, which almost made him gag.

The apartment was cold. He went straight into the bathroom, stripped, and stood under the hot shower until he had turned the room into a sauna. He then dried himself down slowly, relishing the luxury of it and deferring the moment he would have to open the door and let in the cold dark air. He dropped the towel on the floor, and swiped it around in a mixed effort to dry his feet and the floor. If he had been more organized in his mind, he would have turned on the heat and brought his clothes in here to change into. He decided he would make dinner, because the idea of bumbling about in the kitchen stirring something in a pot bubbling over a hot gas ring appealed to him. He heard a key scratch at the front door, then saw the shine of the light in the hallway under the bathroom door.

‘Alec, you here?’ called Caterina.

‘Here I am, clean and, if I may say so, ready.’ He flung open the bathroom door.

Caterina was standing there, three plastic shopping bags still in her arms. Standing next to her was her mother, who had already clasped one hand over Elia’s eyes, the other over her own.

Chapter 9

Caterina seemed to be in two minds about whether it had been the funniest thing she had ever seen or a regrettable incident. When she thought about her mother, she found it funny; when she thought about Elia, she was less sure. Blume had no doubts in the matter. It had not been funny in the slightest, but it had helped them gloss over their showdown in the office earlier.

As they lay down in bed together, the boy already safely tucked away and not, it seemed, traumatized for life, the honest voice inside him, the small voice that saw him for what he was and had an ability to tighten his chest and curdle his stomach juices with a simple whisper, now told him that he was only pretending to be annoyed at what had happened. The advantages accrued from the incident had been considerable. Caterina’s mother had declared she was never setting foot in the house again. After she left, Caterina had whispered something about him keeping the rash promise he had made. The incident had implicitly strengthened his case for keeping his own place, and now Caterina, sensing that he was still in a huff, seemed disinclined to ask him where he had been that afternoon. He might have told her, but he was glad for the opportunity not to, and he was also glad that she did not ask him what he was doing as he read the transcript of Professor Pitagora’s interview with the Carabinieri. She would tell him to make his position official or get off the case, and then they would have another fight.

Depending on how he framed the question to himself, Blume reckoned he was either a dammed good lover or simply a good one, but he had to admit he had difficulties with the preliminaries. He found it hard to voice his requests fully clothed, though once the sex began, his tongue loosened, literally and figuratively. But before he could get to that stage, he needed to lie on his back, talk in matter-of-fact tones about some subject or other, and let his, or sometimes her, hands start exploring.

‘I got a call from Magistrate Martone,’ said Caterina, adding an ‘oof!’ as Blume lifted his hand from the sheet and plonked it heavily on her stomach. ‘She’s agitated.’

‘Oh?’ said Blume, shifting down the bed to align his hip with hers. He dearly wished she had not brought up the case again. Apart from everything else, it had no investigative merit. What happened happened: the rest was just administration.

‘The old man . . . the road rage guy . . .’

‘Mr Adelgardo Lambertini,’ said Blume, keeping his voice neutral.

‘Yes. He’s got himself all lawyered-up. A real ball-breaker, too. He’s retracted everything, and now says the whole thing was a ghastly accident.’

Blume slid a finger down. She was wearing cotton pants again, and yet he had definitely seen an entire drawer full of silk ones. He considered asking her about this.

‘He is claiming his foot slipped on to the accelerator in an attempt to brake, and that the reversing back over Valerio’s head was caused by senile dementia. He’s lining up some doctors who will say this is possible.’

‘Anything’s possible,’ murmured Blume, then, reverting to his normal voice, said, ‘Anyhow, what the fuck do you care and why is this making you tense?’

‘The magistrate thinks she’s going to lose the case.’

‘If she thinks that, then she will, and I hope she does.’

‘I don’t. If a crime like this goes unpunished, no matter who the victim was . . .’

‘I don’t want to discuss this,’ said Blume. Had Caterina ever thought of shaving down there. Not all off. A landing strip. How could he ever broach the subject with her?

Was she really still talking about the magistrate and the murdered thug? She turned her body towards him, which was encouraging, but it meant his arm was suddenly too long for what he had been trying to do.

‘I’m sort of in charge of the witness,’ said Caterina. ‘I was the first to interview him, and I accompanied him to the magistrate. And then this evening, Martone ordered me to go round to him again, and check that he was sticking with his story.’

If he responded she might finish the conversation quicker. ‘What’s he do, this witness?’

‘He’s a barber.’

‘A barber. Well, people don’t feel strongly about barbers. The court is not going to have any pro- or anti-barber prejudices.’

‘You speak from experience?’

‘No. Just, you know, people feel neutral about barbers. He’ll make a good witness.’

‘Your hand is hot.’

‘If you want me to stop, just say the word.’

‘No. It’s just . . . This cold. I need to pee.’

A few minutes later, when she had stopped complaining about her feet being cold, he realigned himself and started again, with a little less hope and enthusiasm than before.

‘It’s nice and warm under the duvet,’ she said encouragingly.

He grunted.

‘Did you turn off the heat?’

‘No. It turns itself off.’

‘It turns off far too late, though,’ said Caterina.

‘So adjust the timer.’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘Jesus.’

When he got back to bed, Caterina was almost asleep, and he wasn’t having that.

‘If you’re so hot, let me take this duvet off and, turn round, that’s it . . .’

Caterina lifted her arms and put them behind her head. ‘You are such a romantic, Alec.’

Chapter 10

For a man in his mid-sixties, Professor Pitagora had remarkably well-preserved pale skin. Close up it was a mass of tiny cracks like the surface of a white porcelain plate left in an oven rather than the melted latex look of an ageing rock star, though he did sport a disconcerting moptop Beatles’ haircut that his silver hair made looked like a metal helmet.

The professor was well turned out. His suit was undertaker black but had an expensive cut, beneath which he wore a black shirt with a tiny priest-like collar. Around his neck, he wore a shimmering gold foulard, an unapologetically female piece of apparel. Rising from a broad red chair, he walked across the room towards Blume. The heavy, shiny brogues were masculine enough, as was the gait. If he lost the foulard and pushed his hair back, he would look like a normal person, Blume reckoned.

He seized Blume by his hand, and placed his other hand on the elbow, and shook it firmly, his face showing apparent delight, as if Blume were a favourite brother. On his wrist, he wore a dark gold bracelet.

‘A police commissioner. A valorous and completely underpaid profession. I have always vigorously preferred the police to the Carabinieri, who are always ambiguous. The Carabinieri tend to treat themselves like a state within a state, don’t they? Whereas you people, the
Polizia di Stato
, well, the name says it all. You are a reflection of all the imperfections of the Italian State. When the country is rotten, the police are rotten, but the Carabinieri hide their faces, collaborate in the corruption, then emerge as virtuous. Not so the police. So I’ll try to be as helpful with you as I can, out of deference to your uniform.’

Blume glanced at his arm to check he had not inadvertently put on his dress uniform that morning.

‘Are you political, Alec Blume? You don’t mind me calling you by the name you were baptized with, presuming you were baptized at all.’

Blume wrinkled his nose to indicate he was not too happy with the use of his name, but the professor had crossed his arms and was tapping his foot, as if waiting for something else.

‘Well, were you?’

‘Was I what?’

‘Baptized.’