The Fatal Touch (13 page)

“You said three purposes,” said Blume. “Coverage from liability, persuading the buyer to look below the surface to get to the ‘real’ fake below, and the third?”

“Amusement. Delight,” said the Colonel. “The glee of watching people get trapped by their own greed.”

“And are you immune from the same risk?”

“No. Are you?”

Blume was saved from replying by his phone ringing. He answered it without looking at who was calling, and felt a slight lift as he heard Kristin’s voice.

“Alec, that was an interesting name you gave us. Are you alone?”

“No. I’m sitting right in front of him now.”

The Colonel nodded approvingly. “Getting some background on me? Good work.”

“And now he knows I’m talking about him,” Blume said.

Kristin hesitated, then said, “I’ll call you back.”

“No, tell me now. There must be something interesting that made you call back so soon.”

“He’s ex-secret service. SISDE as it was then. One of the bad apples from the barrels and barrels of bad apples Italy has been producing for years,” said Kristin. “
Deviato
as the press likes to say. He’s supposed to be retired. Also he was involved in an interesting way in the investigations into the Moro murder. In a way that involved this embassy. But that’s all I’m telling you on the phone.”

“Is that your romantic way of confirming dinner this evening?”

Kristin paused before replying. “Yes. We need to talk. You were joking when you said he was sitting in front of you, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was,” said Blume.

“Alec, you need to be careful of this guy. He used to be at the center of a lot of stuff.”

“Used to, but isn’t now?”

“Not now, but he’ll still have connections. Don’t let him know you’re on to him.”

Blume hung up, danced his fingers back and forth on the armrest as he considered Kristin’s warning, then said to the Colonel, “So I hear you were in SISDE.”

“I see you have your sources,” said the Colonel. “Can I ask who they are?”

“I’m sure you can find out if you’re all that interested,” said Blume.

“I am interested. But as you have found out this detail, which I was going to tell you about anyhow, I can get straight to the point. Treacy may have written a diary or some notebooks that contain some compromising details, I won’t call them facts, regarding activities from a long time ago.”

“How long ago?” asked Blume.

“Long, long ago. 1978. There used to be a bar on Via Avicenna in the Marconi district. It was a hangout for monarchists, nationalists, patriots, activists. One regular customer was a certain Tony Chichiarelli. He, too, was a forger. He got killed in 1984. Along with his son, who was a few months old. Now Tony Chichiarelli had a good friend called Luciano Dal Bello, and you may come across this name if you decide to start delving into my past, which I really hope you won’t feel the need to do.”

The Colonel paused to allow Blume the opportunity to make a promise. When he did not, he continued, “Dal Bello was a criminal, but he was also an important informer, and I was his contact. Now, another person who used to hang out in that bar was Henry Treacy, who we all called Harry. He was also Chichiarelli’s friend. I don’t know if they worked together as forgers. It doesn’t seem likely, since Chichiarelli specialized in handwriting, signatures, checks, false share certificates, all that sort of stuff. But they knew each other. Chichiarelli knew Nightingale, too. Now, does the year 1978 mean anything to you?”

“Argentina won the World Cup. Crystal Gale and the Bee Gees were in the charts. It was the year of Disco Inferno,” said Blume.

“In its proper place, there is nothing better than bantering good humor,” said the Colonel.

“That wasn’t just to annoy you, Colonel. Those were the things that were important to me then. You may remember it as the year Prime Minister Moro was kidnapped, then executed by the Red Brigades in March. Me, I was a kid in another country. Come to think of it, I probably didn’t even know about Argentina and the World Cup. I’d have picked that up later. I know the name Chichiarelli. From books and police reports, not experience. He was involved in mysterious ways in the disinformation campaign. Didn’t he produce false messages from the Red Brigades, and from that poor bastard?”

“Which poor bastard?” asked the Colonel.

“Aldo Moro,” said Blume.

“Ah, him. Yes. That’s the sort of thing Chichiarelli did. Not under my instructions, of course.”

After a few moments, Blume said, “Well?”

“Well what, Commissioner?”

“I’m waiting for the end of your story.”

“There isn’t an end. Not a proper one.”

“If you handled Chichiarelli, you must know quite a lot about what really happened in the Moro case.”

“No one knows anything,” said the Colonel. “There are too many centers of power, none of which trusts the other, and too many transversal operators like Chichiarelli. Apart from me and a few others, most of the people from then are now dead—or in Parliament, of course. Now Treacy’s dead, too. I just need to see what he wrote. You are
quite
sure you found no notebooks or diaries or anything of the sort?”

Blume shook his head. He did so with vigor and relish, but felt he might have overplayed it.

“It would be a bad idea to lie to me,” said the Colonel. “Especially now that we are negotiating a possible joint venture that, let me remind you, involves no victims, no loss to the taxpayer, and no betrayal of colleagues. Let’s say the person who would be most upset at the idea of fruitful collaboration without his knowledge is Buoncompagno.”

“I could live with that,” admitted Blume.

“Good. Also because certain works, smallish, easy enough to transport, have been removed from this house and, I regret, not logged properly. It as if they never existed, or as if they were here when you arrived, and vanished during the search you and your inspector carried out. If they were to appear on the market and, say, Buoncompagno were to get a tip-off, and then the records show that the works were never logged by us or you, but you were in here first without a magistrate giving oversight, well then, unjust though it would be . . .”

“I understand,” said Blume. “That will do.”

“Excellent, so we have a deal?”

Blume remained silent.

“I am going to interpret that as a reluctant and principled yes,” said the Colonel. “Now, I hate to insist, but, in my capacity as your temporary business partner, I find it odd that you’re not interested in finding out more about Treacy’s papers.”

“That’s funny,” said Blume. “Because I was just about to ask you, in my capacity as a permanent policeman, how you are so certain they exist.”

“A word of warning,” said the Colonel, sitting forward in his seat. His drooping eyelids gave a soft and tired expression to his face, but, as Blume now saw, he had the eyes of a younger man, and his gaze was sharp and unremitting. Blume stared back, assuming a look of mild interest, waiting for the Colonel to deliver his warning.

“Nobody interrogates me. Is that clear?” said the Colonel. “Nobody. I will not be questioned.” He allowed his eyelids to close for a moment, and his voice took on a more jovial tone. “At least not before lunch. Perhaps you will join me?”

Blume stood up.

“It’s too early for me, Colonel. But I wish you luck in your hunt for these papers.”

“Thank you, though I am pessimistic. We shall be in touch soon, you understand that?”

“I look forward to it,” said Blume.

Chapter 10

As blume left Treacy’s house, a sudden hard bang rang out and echoed blankly against the wall beside him. It took him a full two seconds to recognize it as the noon cannon, fired from the top of the gardens behind him. The sound was martial and startling, quite different from the muffled thud he heard when in his office across the river. The Maresciallo sat in a car directly in front of him, watching. He must have seen him jump and duck as the cannon was fired, but he showed no outward sign of amusement. Blume walked past him as if he had noticed neither the car nor its occupant.

Blume reached the corner of the road where his car was slotted diagonally into the corner. Behind him, American students sat drinking beer outside a cafe. Blume was thinking about having coffee himself, when a woman rose from one of the tables and waved at him. It took him a moment to recognize Caterina. He went over and sat down opposite her. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve just had lunch.”

“Didn’t I tell you to get back to the office?”

“No, you didn’t, actually. And my shift’s over.”

“Well, you need to go back, write up reports, and file . . . do you still have those notebooks?”

“Yes,” Caterina pulled her bag from under the table.

“You didn’t log them in as crime scene evidence?”

“No.”

“That’s not how it works, Inspector.”

“I know. But what with Buoncompagno, the Carabinieri . . . I thought you might want to look at them first.”

Blume leaned over and took out the notebooks. “Have you looked at them?” He opened the first one at random in the middle. “You know, you’re going to have to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” said Caterina.

“Touching the hollow of your throat with your finger when you’re embarrassed.”

Caterina brought her hand down from her neck and hid it under the table.

“So you were reading them here, looking like a student—no, a teacher, I think we said—drinking Coca-Cola.”

“I just wanted to get an idea of what they were.”

“And?”

“Two seem to be a sort of diary going right back to the sixties, and one a manual, full of instructions. It’s filled with formulas, ingredients, trade names. I was waiting for you, Commissioner. And I haven’t really had time to read them. I’ve been doing other things, too.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

Caterina stroked water beads off her glass and said, “Do you know what my father calls ‘Coca-Cola’?” She poked her finger into the glass and spun the remaining shards of ice. “He calls it ‘hoha-hola.’ He can’t pronounce the letter “C,” because he’s a Tuscan. From a town called Signa, know it?”

“Sure. It’s the exit on the A1 that always has a long line, adds thirty minutes to the trip.”

“It’s famous for other things,” said Caterina. “It makes straw hats, for instance.”

“Really?” said Blume.

“You almost make it sound as if that’s not interesting. I only mention it because of that girl, Manuela, in Treacy’s gallery.”

“The one you don’t like, I picked that up,” said Blume.

“No, you’re wrong. She has the arrogance of youth, that’s all,” said Caterina. “I don’t think she’s a bad person at all. Spoilt and unhappy, maybe. But seeing as you were picking things up, did you notice her accent?”

“Her accent? No, not really. It must have been one of the things I didn’t pick up.”

“Me neither,” said Caterina. “Not at first, because she has no accent we might recognize easily. But she’s supposed to be from Pistoia. That’s what she told us, right?”

“I see what you’re getting at,” said Blume. “But young people don’t have such pronounced accents as they used to. All the dialects are dying out in Italy. And now that you mention it, her accent wasn’t entirely Roman, so maybe it was Tuscan.”

“She doesn’t have a trace of a Tuscan accent. Not a trace. I know what it sounds like. Maybe Umbria, north Lazio. Somewhere nearby.”

“That’s more or less Tuscany,” said Blume. “What’s the difference? Why would she say she was from Tuscany if she wasn’t? Only a Tuscan could think that everyone wants to come from Tuscany.”

“I don’t know why she said it. Also there’s no trace of her birth in the records.”

“You checked her out?”

“Sure,” said Caterina. “I can make phone calls from here.” She leaned over to retrieve her bag from in front of Blume, pulled out her notebook, and flicked through it. “According to the APR, three Manuela Ludovisi’s have been born in Italy, but the oldest of them is only eight.”

“So, she was born abroad,” said Blume. “Did you check that out, too?”

“No. I didn’t have time,” said Caterina. “But I did check school enrollments, ID card records, and driving licenses. Or rather, Rosario did. He helped me from the office. He also downloaded and printed out the photo of her in the Public Records Office. The one in her false ID.”

“Inspector Panebianco thought he should do that? I ordered him to get copies of Treacy’s ID photo, I’m glad to see he found the time to satisfy your requests, too.”

“He obviously thought it was worth pursuing,” said Caterina, annoyance creeping into her tone. “He didn’t comply immediately, but then he found out some things, and phoned me back and told me he had put a copy of her photo on my desk.”

“What sort of things did he find out?”

“Manuela Ludovisi got her first ID card three years ago. Her tax code dates back to the same time. In other words, both her tax code and her ID card date back to a month or two before she got the job at the gallery.”