The Memory Key (21 page)

The other reason I want to create an imaginary place is that I am here and you are there. I don’t know what your house is like! And the people reading this book will have all sorts of houses, so we need a common virtual ground.

This place may sound lonely, but remember, there are thousands of us who are familiar with it, or with a version of it, since each will be very slightly different from the next, like parallel universes.

But, you’ve guessed it, I have relegated the palace to the back of the book. Appendix II .
. .

For fuck’s sake. Blume went online and ordered a proper version of the book. There.

Chapter 21

Dinner with Caterina that evening was conducted in the sort of stilted silence that used to make him hate his parents when they did it. He could see Elia stealing furtive glances at them both. Poor kid was dying to say something, find out what was going on and stop it, or just break the evil mood. The looks he was directing at Blume were no more hostile than those at his mother, which made Blume feel grateful and suddenly tender.

It only took him three minutes to wolf down his pasta. Caterina took her fourth or fifth forkful and eyed him levelly. He had complained in the past about her pushing food around her plate, but he was not going to bring that subject up tonight. She seemed to be considering making one of her remarks about him eating like a savage, but whoever made the first criticism would become the guilty party in Elia’s eyes, so they both held their peace.

Elia, closer to Blume than his mother in eating speed, fidgeted.

‘I was followed today,’ said Blume suddenly, addressing himself more to Elia than to Caterina.

Elia’s eyes widened. ‘Who by?’

‘Some amateur,’ he said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘This is the first I am hearing about it,’ said Caterina.

‘I didn’t give it much thought.’

‘Is it in connection with the university thing?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Did you get a look at the person, the vehicle?’

Blume relented. He had not wanted to discuss the case with Caterina, but he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. Besides, Elia seemed to be enjoying the break in the tension.

When he had finished telling an abbreviated version of his morning, Caterina said, ‘So did you look up the reports of stolen vehicles afterwards?’

‘No,’ said Blume.

‘How do you know the car was stolen?’ Elia asked his mother.

‘She doesn’t,’ said Blume, ‘but it is an intelligent suggestion. It shows she is cleverer than me.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Elia.

‘If what Alec has been telling us is the truth, love, and the person following him was really an amateur, and he is not just saying that to put my mind at ease, then we have three options: the person was driving his own car, he was driving a friend’s, or he was driving a stolen one.’

‘That applies to anyone in a car,’ said Elia.

‘You’re right, of course. But let us suppose that this person now fears that Alec has the details, then he may well be tempted to report the car stolen. That’s what some people do in a hit-and-run. They report their own car stolen. It never works, but they do it. It makes our task easier, because they give a full description of the car, make, model, registration, none of which was known before. Then we find the car and we find the owner, and usually the owner is the guilty party, or his best friend is. It’s depressingly easy.’

‘Sometimes,’ said Blume, ‘they report the car stolen
before
using it for a criminal act.’

‘So they are driving around with intent in a car that is on a watch list?’ asked Elia. ‘Nobody can be that dumb.’

The two of them turned and spoke almost in unison.

‘Oh, yes they can,’ said his mother.

‘Dumber than that, even,’ said Blume. He surreptitiously swiped his thumb across his empty plate and sucked it. ‘That was delicious pasta, Caterina.’

‘Thank you.’

‘All that effort, you could have made a little more?’

The following morning, they drove in to work together. The sun had made a glorious comeback and every surface was glistening. Even his car looked bright and new.

‘I can look for reports of a stolen Skoda Octavia when I get in, keep my eye open during the day,’ said Caterina.

Blume patted her knee, ‘I appreciate that.’

She swung her legs towards the door. ‘Don’t do that. It’s patronizing, and the fact you mean it humorously makes it worse. And you never really explained who you think might be following you.’

Blume put both hands on the steering wheel and looked straight ahead.

‘There is something important I need to tell you,’ she said.

‘Go on.’

‘I think . . .’ A rippling roar and a figure flashed in front of them, but Blume continued driving without interruption, as if nothing had happened. If anything, he had accelerated a little. ‘
Dio mio!
Alec, did you not see that motorcyclist?’

‘I saw him,’ said Blume. ‘And he saw me, the fucker. If he wants to drive like that, it’s his funeral.’

‘You can’t just. . .’

‘I didn’t do anything. I kept going straight at the same speed. If he wants to cut in at speed inches from a vehicle on a wet road, that’s his problem. Sooner or later he’ll slide under someone’s car.’

‘Let’s try not to make it ours, OK?’

‘You’re talking as if I aimed at him.’

‘You didn’t try to avoid him.’

‘Not the same thing.’

‘Sometimes I don’t understand you,’ said Caterina.

‘I am easy to understand. I’ll tell you what’s hard to understand is motorcyclists who think they’re immortal. They try to bully you on the road as if they were in a Sherman tank or something, but it’s the other way round. Just the tiniest tap with your car and they go skittering across the road like rag dolls.’

Caterina stared out the side window. Her husband, Elia’s father, had been killed while on a motorcycle. Maybe by a driver like Blume. No doubt Blume had forgotten this detail of her husband’s death, which in some respects made it worse. He had been a better man than the one beside her now.

It was not until they were heading across Piazza Venezia that Blume said, ‘You were going to say something?’

‘Was I?’ said Caterina. ‘Maybe I was going to say I’ll drive myself in tomorrow.’

Blume spent the entire morning writing up a report for a magistrate on his minor role in what turned out to be an interesting enough case of a jeweller’s wife organizing to have herself robbed by a gang that was supposed to return some of the proceeds, but then did not. The police had still been chasing up the identity of the gang members and examining some video evidence when the wife walked in and named them all.

He made a special effort to be succinct. He rather prided himself on it, even though he knew it was regarded as a failing by certain magistrates, whose love of formal language and meandering, inconclusive sentences knew no bounds. Once, paraphrasing someone, he had added a note, ‘I am sorry this report is so long, I did not have time enough to write a shorter one’, and the magistrate called him in and reprimanded him for facetiousness.

At mid morning, he phoned Principe, who turned out to be at home.

‘Not feeling well?’ asked Blume.

‘No.’

‘I could call round.’

‘No.’

‘I am coming around anyhow.’

Chapter 22

Blume was shocked into a sudden sympathy when Principe opened the door. The magistrate’s fine suits had hidden a lot. Now that he was dressed in a round-necked sweatshirt and loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms, he seemed three times thinner and 30 years older.

‘I seemed thin, but not emaciated, right? I know. I didn’t quite realize it myself until I looked in the mirror this morning. I almost never look in the mirror.’

‘Me neither,’ said Blume irrelevantly.

‘The Gemcitabine they were giving me made me vomit, the cancer kills my appetite. Weight Watchers have got a lot to learn from me. I think I’ll write a book. Any ideas for a title?’

‘
Yes, we cancer
,’ suggested Blume.

‘I was thinking more along the lines of “Fast, pray, and die”.’

‘That’s good, too.’ It seemed inconceivable that three minutes ago he had still been intending to attack Principe for the way he was conducting, or not conducting, his inquiries. Now he had a different criticism. ‘Why the hell did you stay at work?’

‘What else could I do with my life?’

Blume felt aggrieved. Principe had just given him an emotional sucker punch. ‘You could have given me fair warning.’

Principe pressed his hand to the small of his back and grimaced. ‘Alec, I am so sorry. I didn’t know it was going to suddenly be this bad.’

But Blume’s anger was not satisfied yet. ‘Why the hell were you drinking when I met you?’

‘I was trying to hurry things along,’ said Principe.

‘That’s just . . . irresponsible.’

‘Maybe, but it worked. Since then I have been hardly able to move.’

‘What about hospital?’

‘What about it? I want to die here, in my own house.’

‘Yes, but there is no one here to help. You can’t. Actually, I think it’s illegal for me to walk out of here now without calling an ambulance.’

‘Failure to provide emergency aid, pursuant to Article 593 . . .’

‘I am being serious.’

‘I know.’

‘We all die alone anyhow.’

‘Where is your daughter?’

‘United States. Where you came from once.’

‘Call her.’

‘I can’t. I don’t have her number. I don’t know where she lives.’

‘How did that happen, Filippo?’

‘You suspect me now, don’t you? I must have done something terrible to lose her like that. I didn’t. It’s not always the parents who are at fault. Evil can be spontaneous, and emerge in a child for no reason.’

‘You can’t call your daughter evil,’ said Blume.

‘Evil is a stupid word.’ Principe fell silent as he breathed heavily through his nose. Sweat slid off his forehead. ‘Selfish. She simply never cared for us. We were never good enough. It broke her mother’s heart.’

‘I definitely remember your mentioning a grandson, once. You went to the beach. That was with her, I assume. It wasn’t so long ago.’

‘Six years. There was some idea the grandchild might bring us all together again. I didn’t even like the boy all that much.’

‘It sounds like you might have something to do with the rift. I’ll call her.’

A sudden burst of energy passed through Principe’s body. ‘No! That would be gross interference.’ Even the yellow pallor around his eyes whitened for a moment as he stared at Blume. ‘She did not come to her mother’s funeral, I don’t want her by my deathbed.’

‘I’m not a psychiatrist –’ began Blume.

‘No, you’re not.’

‘But . . . look, you told me you were sort of in love with that young girl, Sofia. That’s why you called me in.’

‘I’m sorry. I think that was a side effect of the drugs. In fact, it seems I got you into this mess as a result of a pharmacological side effect. All life is chemicals reacting and running into each other anyhow. Still, I’m sorry.’

‘Stop apologizing. Did Sofia remind you of your daughter?’

‘It’s logical you should think that.’

‘Well, did she?’

‘No. She reminded me of my wife. We married when we were very young.’

‘Why didn’t your daughter come to the funeral?’

‘I don’t know. Ask her. That is to say, don’t. Don’t contact her.’

‘She’s your child. If I had a child . . .’

‘You might end up very disappointed. Look, I was going to call you anyhow, apologize, and tell you to forget about the case, if you can. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know what happened. I thought I did, but I’ve done with it all now. Sorry.’

‘
Porco Dio
, Filippo. Stop apologizing. Did you put me on the case to see you die?’

‘Maybe. For the company.’

‘You could have chosen someone better.’

‘Not true. I am not as good a person as you think I am, Alec. You can tell just by looking at my address. If I was completely clean, I wouldn’t live here on Via della Pigna. Have you any idea what this place is worth?’

‘Your annual income is pretty high, and you’ve been living here for some time. I am sure it was cheaper when you bought it.’

‘Not that much cheaper, and my annual income is €66,000. My pay grade does not account for 300 square metres on the top floor of this building, and it never did. You think I’m exaggerating? Sure, this house is small enough, but here’s something I bet you didn’t know: my neighbours pay me rent. That doubles my income, and I declare only one of the rents. I also have considerable savings. Several million. How do you think that happened? And what was the point of it anyhow?’