The Memory Key (40 page)

Blume sipped his oily coffee. ‘You have another son, I believe?’

‘Paolo. Yes. But you are not here for him, are you?’

Blume ignored the question. ‘What makes you think Marco is in trouble?’

The man folded his arms, and Blume noticed a white line snaking across his forearm. He caught Blume’s gaze and flexed his triceps causing the scar to whiten still further. ‘An accident with phosphorous. Night training with idiots.’

It was hard to make out the man’s age. ‘Are you still in the Carabinieri?’

‘No. Retired. Two former colleagues and I run a gym now.’

‘That going well?’

‘What the fuck do you care, Commissioner? You’re here to question or arrest Marco, but I have not seen him in several days. If I did, I’d hand him in, no problem.’

‘If I were here to arrest him, I wouldn’t have come on my own.’

‘Maybe you have backup around the corner. I don’t know how these things work. I was never on civilian duty.’

‘First Tuscania parachute regiment, you left in 2002.’

Curt nod.

‘But you must know something about civilian policing from your other son.’

‘You mean my first son, Paolo.’

‘Yes, him. He’s a
vice brigadiere
.’

‘In Naples. A hard posting. Still, not quite as hard as Iraq.’

‘He was back in Rome recently?’

‘He visits me regularly. Never stays more than one night when he comes, so he is not a burden. He’s a good son.’

‘Is Marco a good son?’

‘If you’ve finished with that cup, give it to me, so I can wash it.’

He picked up Blume’s coffee cup and carried it over to the sink, where he held it under a jet of hot water until not a germ could be left on it. He wiped away the drops with kitchen towels and dropped them into one of four differentiated bins that slid neatly from under the sink.

‘Do you mind my saying that you don’t seem surprised or upset that Marco’s in trouble? You seem remarkably uninterested in what it may be about?’

‘I wish he had got into trouble earlier.’ The words were directed at the sink. ‘It might have done him some good. As for what it’s about, I am assuming something squalid that a father would not want to hear about.’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘Drugs, blackmail, corruption of some sort. Maybe he was selling exam papers. Maybe he’s been caught in bad company.’

‘He mentioned nothing of a murdered girl?’

‘No, he did not.’ Marco’s father finally turned around. ‘Are we talking about a murder case?’

‘Yes,’ said Blume. ‘Let me ask you, Mr Aquilone, do you know Olivia, Marco’s girlfriend?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve met her.’

‘She had a cousin called Sofia.’

Marco’s father shook his head. ‘I’m not saying she didn’t, but I know nothing about her.’

‘Really? Not even the name?’

‘No. I mean he might have said something once, but I doubt it. He and I don’t talk much, you see. He’s more of a mama’s boy.’

‘I thought she was dead,’ said Blume.

‘She’s not dead! Or she wasn’t last time I heard, which was a while ago, I admit. She left us when Marco was 7. So now you know what sort of woman she was.’

‘Not really. What sort of woman was she?’

‘The sort who could walk out on her children, leave her husband, a soldier, with a mother’s work. It’s odd you should come here so ill-informed of the facts.’

‘It’s odd your son never mentioned the death of his girlfriend’s cousin. Do you have a weapons collection, Mr Aquilone?’

‘No, I do not. Weapons are tools for killing. When you have no more need to kill, you have no more need for weapons.’

‘Did you kill anyone in Iraq?’

‘Not in Iraq. I shot at a UCK militiaman in Macedonia in 1998. He went down, but the kill was never confirmed by anyone. That’s it.’

‘No more shooting after that?’

‘I like to keep my hand in, but I do not keep weapons. I visit a range, and the weapons are stored there.’

‘So you never even heard of Sofia?’

‘Like I said, we don’t talk much.’

‘How about Olivia?’

‘As I said, I met her, all right.’

‘You don’t like her?’

‘She is too much woman for someone like my son.’

‘Your son is a good-looking kid.’

‘He should be. He spends all day grooming himself.’

Blume glanced at the muscle-toned sunlamped man in front of him and said nothing, but he felt his eye flicker in contempt, and it was picked up immediately.

‘I look after my body. My son grooms himself like a girl. As for the rest of it, I have no idea what goes on in his head. Now you come here talking about dead cousins and asking me if I have any weapons, which, I repeat, I do not. Whatever he has done, you can be dammed sure I am not complicit in it. We are strangers to one another.’

‘Yet he lives here.’

‘When it suits him.’

‘Did you ever take him to that firing range?’

‘When he was a kid, we used to go out to my father’s place near Todi. There was a field there, and my father had some old weapons. He was a damned good shot.’

‘Who, your father or Marco?’

‘Marco. My father was a lousy shot for an
Alpino
. A lousy father, too, come to that.’

‘So your father was also in the military.’

‘Killed Greeks and Albanians in the Second World War, or at least shot more or less in their direction. He was a good engineer, so he says, but never learned to shoot straight. But I am not one to speak ill of the dead. Marco was a better shot than his brother, Paolo, though you would hardly believe it.’

‘Why would I not believe it?’

‘Paolo chose a police career. Marco chose to become what he has become.’

‘You don’t like him any more?’ asked Blume.

Aquilone folded his hands over his forearms.

‘But you did like him in the past, when you went out shooting in the Umbrian countryside, didn’t you? Do you miss your son, then, Mr Aquilone?’

‘I think you had better leave now.’

‘Where is he? Where is Marco?’

‘I have no idea. Like I said. I would hand him over at once if I thought he had done something wrong.’

‘What about Paolo?’

‘Paolo would not do something wrong, so I would never have to make that painful decision.’

‘You misunderstand,’ said Blume. ‘Would Paolo hand over his younger brother?’

‘I think you have asked enough questions, Commissioner.’

‘Just one more request.’

‘What?’

‘Call Paolo.’

‘Now?’ He slipped a phone out of his cargo pants.

‘No, not like that,’ said Blume. ‘Like this: “Paolo! Come in here. We’re in the kitchen!” Like that.’

‘I think you are completely . . .’

A well-built young man with irregular features and curly hair, stepped over the threshold.

‘It’s OK, Papà. I’ll take it from here.’

‘Paolo,’ said Blume. The man in front of him had all the same handsome features of his younger brother, except they looked like they had been thrown on to his face haphazardly. The fleshy lips were close to the nose, and the eyes were large, but close together. Marco’s high cheekbones were there, too, but looked like injuries. One of his ears was cauliflowered. His hands were large and powerful.

‘Papà, really, it’s all right.’

Blume turned round to see the father slowly drying a large bread-knife, his eyes fixed on Blume. Slowly he put the knife down, laying it on the counter and covering it with a cloth with the care of a priest cleaning and putting away the communion chalice. Then he left the room, making no noise with his footsteps.

‘The car you followed me in is parked outside,’ said Blume. ‘No work for the Carabinieri in Naples?’

‘I am off duty. Back on this evening. I am leaving soon.’

‘I won’t be stopping you, I hope,’ said Blume. ‘Tell me about Marco.’

‘My brother has some issues with his sexuality.’ Paolo glanced nervously behind him, then went over, and closed the kitchen door. ‘He is not ready to come to terms with it. This makes him behave oddly.’

‘What sort of issues?’

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Issues. I look after him, but he’s secretive. Yes, I followed you because I was worried he had done something – he wouldn’t talk about it.’

‘Do you think he is capable of killing?’

‘No.’

‘Of course you would say that,’ said Blume. ‘They seem to have found a rifle in Pitagora’s garden.
The
rifle, probably. Anyone could have put it there.’

‘Exactly, anyone at all.’

‘Your brother is one of Pitagora’s students.’

‘I don’t believe he has ever been to Pitagora’s private residence.’

‘No? Any idea where he is right now, by the way. I was hoping to catch him here.’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘A lot of Carabinieri have passed through Pitagora’s place in recent times. One more in uniform might not have been noticed. You could have dropped a rifle into the grass, no problem.’

‘My uniform is in a locker in Naples. I brought no rifle into any garden.’

‘Relax. I want to teach you a trick for remembering numbers. Are you listening?’

Paolo’s screwed his ugly face into a pained expression. ‘I don’t have much time.’

‘Sit down, listen, and don’t answer me back.’

Paolo scowled, but he sat down at the kitchen table. Blume removed the knife from the counter and placed it between them.

‘What’s that for?’

‘It made me nervous, behind my back. Do you know what a vowel is?’

‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’

‘You’re a Carabiniere,’ said Blume spreading his hands. ‘You must know the jokes. Anyhow, the vowels don’t count. You can use them however you please.’

‘What vowels don’t count?’

‘All of them. OK, so a zero is a S or a Z. Got that?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘When you see a zero, think of an S or a Z instead. Then you can add some vowels. So you see a zero, you think Z and then maybe the vowel O – twice if you want. What word do you have?’

‘Zoo.’

‘Good. So instead of a zero, you picture a Zoo.’

‘When do I do this?’

‘When you are trying to remember a long number. I am not responsible for this. It is an ancient system.’ Blume pulled out his notebook and pointed to a page where he had copied out the numbers 0 to 9 and the letters to which they corresponded. ‘The number 1 is a D or a T. Make a word. You can put the vowels before or after or both.’

‘Eto’o. The footballer.’

‘Excellent. I never thought of using names,’ said Blume. ‘So next time you see a 1 that you need to remember, convert it into a picture of him. This will help you in cards, too, by the way. Now a 2 is the letter N. Add a vowel.’

‘No.’

‘What – oh, I get it. Very funny. But your word has to be something you can see, that you can turn into a picture. You can’t picture a “no” so easily.’

‘Anna. No, that’s got two n’s.’

‘No problem. As long as there is nothing between them. See how it works? But Anna is no good unless you have an image of a particular Anna.’

‘There is one in my office. She’s pretty hard to forget. Most beautiful woman alive as it happens.’

‘OK. From now on, think of your beautiful Anna instead of number 2. The number 3 is represented by the letter M.’

‘Amo, Ama, Oma Mao . . .’

‘All right, when you find a word with an image, choose it. The number 4 is an R. Five is an L, 6 is a SH, a J, or a soft G, 7 is a K or a hard C, 8 is a V or an F, and 9 is a B or a P.’

‘OK.’

Blume spun his notebook round. ‘So, say you want to remember the number 27, what would you do?’

Paolo looked blank.

‘You would find a word that has the letter N, for the 2 and then a C or K for the 7. Throw in some vowels between them. Come on, think of a word.’

‘NOCS. The Carabinieri special forces.’

‘I know what it is, but that would be 270 N-C-S. The S is a zero. But you have the hang of it. See how it works? You need to remember 270, you see Carabinieri in balaclavas. Apparently it can be very useful when gambling.’

Paolo was frowning at the page, evidently interested, but Blume turned over the leaf and tapped an email address written in the middle. ‘See that? That is Marco’s email address. [email protected] OK? Name, and what you imagine is the year he signed up.’

‘Yeah. He uses this address.’

‘Convert 08 back into letters.’ Blume flicked the page back.

‘Zero is S or Z and the 8 is F or V,’ said Paolo eventually.

‘Let’s use S and F,’ said Blume. ‘Throw in some vowels – any name suggest itself to you?’