Conor Fitzgerald - The Namesake

‘Friday. They’ve been sitting on the information, making a fool of us. Not of you, though, you backed out of this from the start, didn’t you?’

‘I was giving you breathing space.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I get all the air I need in the large empty spaces you like to leave between us.’

‘I was talking at a professional level. You don’t want me there all the time.’

‘But you knew from the start my investigation was a dead-end.’

Blume started to make a protesting noise, then decided not to bother.

‘You knew and you said nothing,’ she insisted.

‘No. Not at all,’ he said. Accurate or not in her reckoning, it was not right for her to accuse him like this. He turned his back on the man in the brown tie, who was literally hopping with impatience, like a fat chaffinch.

‘Liar,’ said Caterina, and hung up.

He swung round savagely at the bouncing functionary. ‘Next time you wag that finger you’ll be wagging it up…’ But he stopped. The man in front of him, who barely reached his chest, seemed on the verge of tears.

‘I have a very tight schedule,’ he squeezed his legs together and twisted his body as if he was holding his bladder. ‘Can you please hurry?’

Blume took pity, and they proceeded at a smart pace down hallways and up stairs, and then the small man popped open a door and led him into a dark, narrow room, the size of a large utility cupboard. A small hopper window near the ceiling slanted inward, allowing in dark air that reminded Blume of the smell of Line A of the Metro. The gunmetal desk spanned the narrow space between the walls, leaving the tiniest gap for the man to squeeze through, which he set about doing at once, as if anticipating that this would take some time, as indeed it did. Blume reflected that it would have been quicker to clamber over the desktop, which had nothing on it.

The man finally reached his seat behind the desk and sat down. He then looked up with a slight frown of annoyance as if he had been sitting there busily working away and Blume was an unexpected and unwelcome visitor. The pleading demeanour evident in the corridor was quite gone now, and he nodded curtly at the third object in the room, a seat, identical to his own, on Blume’s side. He pulled open a drawer, extracted a thin phone and placed it on the table.

‘This is your new phone,’ he said. ‘I need to see the one you have now.’

Blume was interested in seeing where this was leading. He took his clunky old Nokia out of his pocket and set it on the desk between them next to the sleek new Samsung.

‘I see,’ said the man, looking at the Nokia with disfavour. ‘This new one is a Samsung Smartphone — I have forgotten which model, but it will tell you its name when you turn it on. For now it has but one phone number in it, listed under “Mamma”. That’s us. If we call, please answer. We have a trace on this phone, of course, so we’ll know where you are… umm…’ He drummed his fingers on the empty desk trying to think of other features.

‘Anyhow, you can keep it afterwards. Like a perk. That’s something. Touch screen, Android operating system, built-in GPS navigator, MP3 player, Bluetooth, internet enabled, and it will connect to all four providers, TIM, Vodafone, Tre and Wind. I don’t know how they did that. Don’t use it for personal calls for the next few days. Nothing sinister, just our standard practice.’ He pointed to Blume’s old Nokia. ‘I am going to take that, OK?’

‘No,’ said Blume. ‘Not OK.’

‘Is it police issue or personal?’

‘Both,’ said Blume. ‘Police issue, but it’s the one I use for everything, You’re not having it. It’s not legal for you to have it.’

The man nodded in complete understanding, but stretched out his hand anyway. Blume grabbed his phone back. The man withdrew his hand as if bitten by a snake. The Smartphone sat on the table between them.

‘If you take the Samsung, I’ll have accomplished 50 per cent of my task. Will you at least take it?’

Blume took it and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Thanks for the gift. You realize I have no idea who you are or what this is about?’

The man relaxed. ‘That explains it. You haven’t been briefed yet. Let me check.’

He pulled out a phone, identical to the one he had just handed to Blume, and pressed its screen. ‘Yes, me… He came here first… Right. He still has his old phone by the way. Oh yes, I suppose that makes more sense…’

He dropped the phone back into his pocket and extended his hand. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure.’

As Blume took his hand, the door behind them opened and Captain Massimiliano Massimiliani entered.

‘Sorry about that, Alec. You were taken to the wrong room. Or the right room in the wrong order. We’re just down the corridor here, will you come through?’

Pausing before a door, Massimiliani put his hand on Blume’s shoulder. ‘Just before we go in there, two things. First, the German agent is the liaison officer of the BKA to the anti-Mafia and he really is a friend of mine. He’s completely trustworthy.’

‘Completely?’

‘Oh, yes. I don’t tell him much, of course, but if I did, I am pretty certain he would treat the information responsibly. Now, as much as I have great faith in my friend, I would ask you not to fall for his absent-minded stoner act. He often claims he does not understand, but it’s all an act. Mind what you say.’

Massimiliani opened the door and ushered him in. The man inside stood up and introduced himself rapidly, almost before Blume had taken stock of him.

‘Kommissar Blume, I am Kriminaloberrat Winfried Weissmann,’ he spoke English. ‘Please call me Winfried.’

‘Winfried?’ Blume had a distant memory of his father mentioning a great-grandmother who had the same name. Or was that Winifred? The man in front of him must once have had a full shock of Afro-style hair in his youth. What was left was still frizzy and wild, but it was also snow white and had receded so far from his forehead that it now sat like a pile of freshly shorn wool on the back of his head. Although at least sixty years old, he wore a denim jacket and a red-and-green checked shirt, but, whether in deference to his official function or in recognition of his age, he also wore a shiny pale-blue loosely knotted tie. Winklepicker boots with silver buckles peeped out from below his drainpipe trousers. Blume was not surprised to see an ankh-shaped earring hanging from his fleshy earlobe. Behind him, Captain Massimiliani was nodding in approval as Blume took all this in his stride.

‘ Lei e il capomissione? Sind Sie Oberbefehl…’ said Blume, holding out his hand and smiling pleasantly.

‘Ah! You speak some German!’ The BKA man suddenly seized Blume’s hand in his own, clasped the other hand over it, and pressed it rather emotionally, as if they were childhood friends now reaching a parting of the ways. ‘But we can speak English. Oberbefehl is a bit of an exaggeration. I am the chief of this mission. I don’t think Massimiliano has explained everything to you?’

‘No.’

‘It’s very simple and — hah! — it is very embarrassing, yeah?’

‘If you say so,’ said Blume, taking a step back.

‘I am embarrassed!’ shouted Weissmann, then lowered his voice, glaring suspiciously at the closed door. ‘We have an agent by the name of Konrad Hoffmann, who has been working in the BKA for fifteen years and has a perfect record. I do not know him personally, although I have met him. For the past five years, this officer has been specializing in inquiries into the management of industrial waste and organized crime. Most of his inquiries have focused on the export and disposal of heavy metals produced by German firms. So far, his investigations have focused on the Camorra and the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the region of Campania. The Camorra is not the only Mafia involved in this sector, but Hoffmann’s inquiries have been focused on that particular organization rather than any other.’