Conor Fitzgerald: The dogs of Rome

“Gallone is here, too.”

“Yes, all those atheists who doubted his existence look like fools now, don’t they?” He made a show of looking around. “But he seems to have dematerialized again.”

“I see a Violent Crime Analysis Unit doing plenty of good work, policeman outside, a medical examiner finishing up his job. It looks to me like we are already under the direction of an investigating magistrate, am I right?”

“Yes. Public Minister Filippo Principe.”

“That means I was informed late,” said Blume.

“That happens. Happened when we were partners, too.”

“How long were you here before me? Be precise.”

“Forty minutes.”

“The forensic team was here already?”

“About five minutes after that.”

“Did you enter the apartment?”

“What, am I under suspicion?”

“Well, did you?”

“In the company of Gallone and the first reporting officer, yes. The door was open. The wife had opened it.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t here when I arrived.”

“Weird, isn’t it? You, a representative from the Ministry, and Gallone of all people, being the first to arrive.”

“After the patrol unit, you mean. All I know is I was sent, and I arrived. If there was a delay finding you, it’s hardly my fault.”

“OK,” said Blume.

D’Amico plucked at his tie. “I forgot how aggressive you get.”

“I’m not being aggressive,” said Blume, and patted him on the shoulder. “And I’m happy to hear the investigation is under Principe’s control. I like him. He’ll give us room. He listens, thinks.”

“Except he’s not here,” said D’Amico.

“He’ll get here. He knows it’s best to let the forensic team work the scene first before he sees for himself.”

“If you say so,” said D’Amico.

“I do, Nando. Where were you just now?”

“Getting these keys duplicated.” D’Amico held out and jingled a bunch of keys in front of Blume.

“Those are the keys to this place?”

“Yes. They were on the shelf there, near the door. The technicians gave me permission. Seems like, despite their complaining, they’ve got plenty of other material here.”

“Meaning?”

“Fingerprints, footprints, saliva, hairs. The killer, whoever he was, left traces of himself everywhere. We may even have footprints. That is to say, bare feet.”

Blume looked at the corpse in the hall. Paoloni had put on latex gloves and seemed to be intent on pulling back the lips of a stab wound in the head. “The bare footprints will be his.”

“Not unless he got up and walked about in his own blood, which he could have done, but it doesn’t seem likely. Also, they are small footprints,” said D’Amico.

“A woman’s?”

“Who knows?” D’Amico shrugged. “Here, want a key?” he offered Blume a large H-shaped key for the qua druple deadbolt lock to the front door beside which they were standing. “I didn’t bother getting copies of the key to the front gate. But this one”-he handed Blume a blue aluminium Yale key-“opens the front door to the building. Not that you’ll need it.”

“Why?”

“It’s not secure. Just give it a shove, it opens by itself.”

Blume took the key anyway.

D’Amico reached over and switched off the lights in the hall. His shining suit and white shirt seemed to dim slightly, but his tanned, handsome face continued to glow.

Blume had several questions. He picked an easy one.

“That cardboard box there?”

“It’s full of groceries from the SMA supermarket. Apparently Arturo Clemente here bought them himself yesterday evening, and ordered a delivery for this morning.”

D’Amico pinched the top of his trousers to make sure the crease was still sharp. Blume wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Arturo Clemente’s the name of the victim?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“So what? You think the grocery boy killed him?”

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” said D’Amico. He checked a wafer-thin watch, straightened his shirt cuffs. “We get the grocery boy, leave him with Commissioner Zambotto for an hour, we’ll have the case resolved before supper. That would be nice.”

D’Amico snapped open a shell-shaped mobile that he must have been already holding in his hand, found the number he was looking for, and held the phone to his ear. With his free hand, he smoothed his shining black hair and murmured into it. A technician down the hall cursed and dropped a cyanoacrylate fuming wand. One of his colleagues, who was stretching a cat’s cradle of threads from bloodstains on the floor back to the corpse, laughed. Paoloni, who was sketching the scene in a notebook, joined in.

D’Amico was nine years Blume’s junior and for five years had been two ranks below him. In those days, he had been a neat young man in clean shoes and a polo shirt. Every time he went up a level, he upgraded his clothes style. If he ever made questore, he’d have to dress like Louis XIV.

D’Amico clapped his cell phone shut without saying who it was, but announced: “It seems we have a Political murder on our hands.”

Blume looked at the bloodied body in the loose bathrobe. He noted the splatter patterns on the wall and floor, the cardboard box and the packet of Weetabix visible on top. He said, “It doesn’t look very political to me.”

“Well it is-which explains why Gallone was here.”

“Explains why you are here, too,” said Blume. “That’s a politician?”

“No. He was an animal rights activist of some sort. It’s his wife who’s the politician. She’s also the one who found him. She made the call at 16.05.”

“The forensics complained you had been looking through the apartment already,” said Blume.

“I looked in, is all. Gallone was with me. He’s still my superior, so I did what he wanted.”

“What party? The wife I mean.”

“The Greens,” said D’Amico.

“So we’re looking for an environmentally unfriendly errand boy.”

D’Amico smoothed his hair and looked doubtful. “We can’t rule out anything. On my way back from the hardware store with the keys, I had a chat with the porter. I must have been with him when you arrived. The porter says he saw nothing.”

Blume stayed silent.

D’Amico continued, “He doesn’t strike me as being a very reliable witness. Judging from his breath, either he was drinking in his cabin, or he had just spent some time in a bar.”

“The porter is going to be defensive as well as eager to please. He’ll be trying to give the sort of answers he thinks you want to hear,” said Blume, unable to break his teaching habit.

“He has already been doing some finger-pointing at various residents.”

“He could be right. We’re going to have to check up on them, too.”

“Gallone has been appointing uniforms for the house-to-house visits. He’s suspended leave, called in for a few extra recruits from around town.”

“Gallone the coordinator. That’s new, too,” said Blume.

D’Amico slid his hand into his jacket, and from his inside pocket extracted four sheets of paper, neatly folded and stapled together. He thumbed through the sheets, then handed them to Blume.

“This is a list of all the residents in this and the other three buildings in the complex.”

Blume glanced through the pages. “Some of the names are circled.”

“Those are the ones about whom the porter has grave misgivings. He circled them himself.”

Blume turned to the next page. “There are more names circled than not.”

“He is a very suspicious porter.”

Blume said, “How can he sleep at night being surrounded by so many murderous residents? Little wonder the poor man drinks. And you, you’ve been very busy for someone sent to represent the Ministry.”