The Memory Key (32 page)

‘Where’s a good place near here to get something to eat?’ He was five minutes from his station, but Via del Corso acted as a sort of line of jurisdiction for him and his colleagues, including for the bars and cafés. Anywhere around the Pantheon and Campo Marzio was home territory, but this was foreign ground as far as eating was concerned.

The policeman relaxed again, as he realized the unwarranted absence of his colleague was not going to be an issue.

‘Sitting or standing?’

Blume checked the time on his phone. ‘Sitting, I suppose. But a panino or something. Not a hot meal.’

The policeman crooked his finger and pointed down the lane to Blume’s left. ‘There on Via di San Marcello. The old Peroni brewery. Nice and warm, and not so many tourists now. It’s a bit pricey, but if you just want a roll or something. There’s no police discount.’

Blume thanked him, and walked a few paces down the narrow street, which was slick from the rain that had stopped falling an hour earlier but continued to drip from the dark buildings on either side of him. The lights of the Antica Birreria Peroni cast a golden glow on to the cobbles in front of him, whether from the ochre of the building itself or from the brass fittings inside he could not tell. He stopped just short of the entrance door, and considered. The door opened sending a gust of warm air laden with the scent of fried food and hops towards him, and a uniformed policeman came out, paused, nodded to Blume, and went on his way.

Blume rubbed his hands, which were perfectly warm but he wanted to remind himself of the cold, stamped his feet for the same reason, and walked quickly into the bar. When he had been a student, this place had been too expensive to frequent, but he had spent some evenings here, before the city filled up with its horrible Irish pubs. He remembered they used to serve fat-fried potatoes and German sausages, and wondered if they still did.

Half an hour later, walking quickly now, his stomach feeling very pleasantly bloated, his head still light but no longer threatening migraine, Blume was considering, with detached wonderment, at the mechanism by which he had ended up drinking a half litre of beer without having had the slightest intention of doing so. To cure his headache, he supposed, and it had worked. He felt pretty good, all things considered. Pretty damned good.

There was no reason for him not to drink; it was simply that he chose not to, or had chosen not to, after an attractive American woman was scathing to his face about his ‘dependence’ as she called it. He could smell the fried food coming off his own coat now.

He took the flight of steps that led up to Via 24 Maggio. To clear the hoppy smell from his breath, he took the steps three at a time, as fast as possible. He reached the top and tried to maintain his speed, but had to bend down and place his hands on his knees. He felt like he might faint. A doorman in livery watched him impassively from the Hotel Bolivar. He sucked in deep breaths, to get rid of the expanding pain in his chest. It was not a heart attack. A friend of his had had a heart attack, and said it was unmistakable. ‘If you feel like there is an elephant sitting on your chest, it’s a heart attack. Anything else is just wasted panic.’

Blume straightened up. More a heavy dog than an elephant. He recomposed himself, and walked with aplomb across the road.

Chapter 34

Blume handed over his badge, pistol, and handcuffs to a young man in a well-ironed uniform, who gave him three separate receipts and made him sign several papers, then asked him to take a seat, as if this were a job interview rather than its opposite.

They did not keep him waiting long. He was expected to sit and listen, which he did, as Questore De Rossi, his voice aching with regret, told him that there was simply no choice but to issue an interlocutory order. The vice-questore sitting beside his boss, nodded his head in rhythm to the beat of his boss’s careful emphasis on certain words such as ‘honourable’ and ‘shock’ and ‘unfortunate’ and ‘service’ and ‘embarrassment’ and ‘standards’.

Blume stayed silent as he was upbraided for unauthorized interference in an ongoing investigation, with actions verging on perversion of the course of justice. Failure to obey a direct order, failure to file a report, prejudicing interforce harmony, breaking a seal to gain unlawful access to the scene of a crime, neglect of duty, interference with and possible destruction of evidence, interference with witnesses, unlawful interrogation of suspect, unwarranted interviews with a terrorist, who then died in mysterious circumstances.

He kept his face set to impassive, but flinched a little when the questore moved on to an exaggerated version of the attempted arrest of the professor. He had not been expecting that. Zezza had not just filed a complaint, he had filled in all the details giving a running commentary.

Modulating his regret into a convincing imitation of concern, the questore wondered whether Blume had really been ‘brandishing a pistol’.

‘
Balle
,’ said Blume dismissively.

The questore smiled as said he was pleased to hear it was bullshit. He had not believed it for a moment. A note of concern crept into his voice, and he wondered if Blume had considered the possibility of counselling.

Blume said the only counselling he intended to take was with the union and solicitors, whereupon the questore dropped the pretense of concern, which was a relief for all of them. Questore De Rossi told Blume to consider the prospect of life outside the police force; Blume counter-attacked, accusing the questore of caving in to political pressure. At this point, the vice-questore, a hunched creature with freckles way past the age in which it was normal to have them, intervened to say, ‘Do I smell alcohol on your breath, Commissioner?’

‘Absolutely not. I don’t even drink.’

‘I must be mistaken.’

‘Maybe you should have that checked out,’ said Blume.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Olfactory hallucinations can be the sign of a temporal lobe stroke.’

A bit of to-and-fro came quickly to an end when Blume, whose mind was now focused exclusively on his bladder, stood up.

‘Are you walking out of this hearing?’ asked the vice-questore in a high-pitched voice that he might have intended to sound indignant but came out as a squeal of undisguised delight at Blume’s self-destruction.

It wasn’t a hearing, but Blume hadn’t time to insist on the point. ‘I need to go to the toilet. I’ll be back in a second.’

As he reached the door, the questore called to him. ‘Commissioner?’

He turned round impatiently. ‘What?’

‘Turn right, second to last door on your right, just before the stairs. And, Commissioner?’

Blume waited, knowing what was coming.

‘Don’t bother coming back. We’ve finished here.’

Standing in the toilet, leaning with folded arm against the wall, Blume marvelled at a fun fact about beer that he had forgotten. As much as you drank was as much as you pissed. This rule did not seem to apply so inflexibly to other drinks.

Unlike in his station, the taps here gave forth a steady stream of warm water, and both the soap and towel dispensers were full. The mirror was remarkably clean and well illuminated by the overhead lights, and therefore unforgiving of his face. Blume tried out some grins and smiles, then some sneers as he dried his hands, and then suddenly thought of the two-way mirrors in interrogation rooms and stopped. Soberly, he straightened his hair, his collar and breathed on to the palm of his hand and brought it to his nose. It smelled of pink bubble-gum from the soap he had just been using.

He stepped out the door, ready to turn directly on to the stairs and leave the building, but the neat cop who had deprived him of his badge and Beretta was standing there waiting for him.

‘They want you back in, sir.’

‘That’s not what they just told me.’

‘I don’t know what they told you, I only know what they told me.’

When he entered the room again, the two men were sitting in the same places as before and attempting to wear the same expression, but something had changed. They were slightly more anxious, whereas he felt more relaxed now. Lighter without his badge and pistol, his bladder empty, his future a wide open range, he could not see what other harm they could do to him today. Perhaps at the disciplinary hearing itself, but that was at least six weeks away. He was suspended on full pay, and they suddenly needed him back to tell them something. His sense of ease increased when Questore De Rossi nodded to his freckled deputy, dismissing him.

‘Look, Blume, seeing as you have got yourself involved in this, can you at least answer a few questions?’

Blume shrugged.

‘Did the professor kill Stefania Manfellotto?’

‘
Macché!
’

‘I don’t mean in person in the hospital. Did he order her killed, do you think?’

‘No.’

‘Is he involved in her murder?’

Blume was less sure about this. ‘Probably not,’ he ventured after a while.

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘I can’t be. Someone called while I was in the toilet,’ said Blume with a grin. ‘Right?’

The questore ignored his question. He picked up a pen, clicked it, clicked it a second time, put it down again, and then began moving a piece of paper in front of him. ‘I am in two minds here. We have got a lot of pressure from the Carabinieri and the new investigating magistrate, who are all very anxious to see the back of you, and who wouldn’t be? But Pitagora has friends, too, and they are even higher up, and the pressure from them, when it comes, will be even greater. For now, the professor seems to believe in you. He sent me a message – not directly – asking for your arguments to be listened to.’

‘It
would
look good it you helped him in his hour of need, resisting the pressures of the Carabinieri.’

‘You realize that I cannot lift a suspension even if I wanted to?’

‘Of course,’ said Blume.

‘But if you have something that might help the professor recover his peace of mind, that would be welcome.’

‘The professor is innocent,’ said Blume, becoming more convinced of the idea as he spoke it.

‘Give me your evidence.’

Blume shook his head. ‘For now, it’s only negative. I have no proof, and now thanks to you, I have no badge, so getting proof is going to be hard.’

‘Just tell me your theory.’

‘Not until it’s fact.’ Blume expected the questore to explode, but his expression was almost meek.

‘What about this Manfellotto business?’

‘Probably a political assassination.’

‘You think someone dragged her out of bed, took her to the fire escape, and threw her over on to a group of doctors smoking in the courtyard. Who would have killed her, Blume? You spoke to her – improper conduct and all that aside.’

‘The professor probably knows more or less who ordered it, but he’s not behind it. It could be an accident, or suicide.’

‘She was brain damaged?’

‘Yes, but also perfectly sane, and perfectly harmless,’ said Blume.

‘Tell that to the people she shot and the 80 people she blew to pieces,’ De Rossi said.

‘Sure, if you think talking to the dead makes sense,’ said Blume.

The questore eyed him levelly. ‘My inclination is to back the professor. And that means you.’

‘Good old Pitagora. He’s scared, you see. They killed Manfellotto.’

‘He should have been scared after the first assassination attempt, too, then.’

‘Maybe he was,’ said Blume. ‘But I can see how this second one is more frightening for him.’

‘How?’

‘Well, apart from the fact they succeeded, they decided to get rid of someone who was only marginally dangerous. The professor is no doubt marginally dangerous to some people, probably the same people. Anyhow, sir, seeing as you cannot un-suspend me, can you get me clearance into the computer forensic labs at Tuscolana?’

‘What do you want there?’

‘I want to look at Facebook messages, emails, that sort of thing.’

The questore folded his arms. ‘This
is
to do with the case?’

‘Of course. It’s the only thing I can do without getting under the feet of the Carabinieri. Without them knowing.’

‘And this will help clear the professor?’

‘Maybe. In any case, he will see that you have been trying to help.’

De Rossi picked up the phone on his desk. ‘When were you planning on going?’

‘I don’t know, the next few days. I sort of lost my sense of urgency with the suspension.’

‘How about right now? If you ever want back on the force.’

‘Now’s also good.’

After the questore had finished on the phone, he ordered Blume to wait at the front entrance on Via Genova. ‘Someone will come to collect you.’ He pointed a pudgy finger at Blume, ‘If you’re wrong . . .’

‘Then you will suffer political embarrassment,’ said Blume, ‘but you will make damned sure my career goes down in flames.’

‘Your life, Blume. Your whole life. You had better be right.’