Conor Fitzgerald - The Namesake

‘Alec?’

‘Yes, yes. Still here.’ But he wasn’t. His mind had darted back to the idea of Curmaci’s wife fleeing, Konrad as a fast-moving fish, a fragment from his dream.

‘Maria Itria said she would co-operate with the authorities if something happened to her husband, but as far as we know, nothing has,’ said Caterina. ‘But something is up. Curmaci’s acting strangely and his wife and children are in trouble, just like you wanted.’

‘What’s Curmaci doing that’s strange?’

‘He was booked under a false name on a flight from Frankfurt to Lamezia Terme, but he never took the flight, and he disappeared yesterday evening,’ she said.

‘Those geniuses at the BKA lost him?’

‘No, we did. The BKA saw him board a flight for Bari instead of Lamezia Terme and alerted us. That is to say, they alerted the Finance Police at Bari airport. The Finance Police registered Curmaci’s arrival and reported it to the Carabinieri at the airport, who reported it to the police in the city. Problem is, the police in Bari were in Bari while Curmaci was at the airport, and no one had told the Carabinieri… Well, you’ve seen how it happens. By the time it had been cleared up, and authorization given for the Carabinieri to follow him, he was gone. It appears he rented a car, and they’re looking into it.’

‘He changed his route at the last minute,’ said Blume. ‘Three or four hours will take him to Calabria and Locri. Looks to me like he’s just trying to shake off anyone who might be following. We can try to pick him up after the Polsi summit, though it’s not so easy to find those bastards. They seem to vanish into the Aspromonte wilderness only to turn up a few days later in New York, London, Malaga or Amsterdam.’

‘Or he does not want to meet his welcoming committee in Lamezia Terme,’ said Caterina.

‘You mean because he fears for his life? No. That’s not it. If he feared assassination at the hands of his own people, he’d steer clear of Calabria altogether.’

‘Typically, Alec, you keep forgetting his family. He has the strongest and most urgent reason in the world to get there. They are vulnerable. Funny how you seem to block that out of your mind since, I presume, that was the original idea behind the forged confession. Or didn’t you think about the consequences for the woman and her children?’

Blume paused to think. This was one of those questions Caterina liked to ask in which, whether he replied yes or no, he still came out of it looking like the bad guy. He chose the best response he could come up with: ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know,’ she echoed, scathing. ‘You realize Arconti may be trying to do you a favour by not calling in the local police? A woman from the Ndrangheta, a s orella d’omerta confessing to a magistrate, especially one who has become notorious because of the namesake killing, is going to be big news. And if her story is big news, your efforts to force her husband back into Italy via a false confession is going to be just as big, maybe bigger given the poisonous atmosphere in the country against investigators and magistrates.’

‘I’m not a magistrate.’

‘Arconti is. If the story breaks in the press, every magistrate in Italy will distance themselves as fast and as far as they can from you and all your dubious tactics before Berlusconi’s hacks turn this into another weapon to use against the judiciary. They’ll throw you to the lions.’

‘Those reporters aren’t lions. More like trained monkeys.’

‘Trained to tear people apart, Alec. You know better than to hope for solidarity…’

‘All right. Point taken. My thanks to Arconti for allowing me to fix this thing myself.’

‘Good. What are you going to do now? What about the German you are with?’

Blume felt a small tingling in his stomach and arms, like a tiny version of the body’s aftershock to a near-miss traffic accident. Her question bothered him. ‘I think I need to talk with him,’ he said. ‘Right now, as a matter of fact. I’ll call you back.’

‘Sure you will,’ she said.

Blume ran up to the hotel lobby in his boxer shorts, his mind’s eye already anticipating what he would see out the window of the lobby, the silver leaves of the olive trees, the mass of dark green and pale white of jasmine bushes in the background, and, off to the side, nodding in and out of view, a scarlet hibiscus bush he had noticed the day before. His eye immediately latched on to the revolting plant as soon as he arrived in the lobby. Blume stared across the room out at the fat red flowers already opening in the morning sun, their protruding stamens licking at the air. Yesterday, when he had glanced out the window, the plant had been obscured by the rear section of an old orange-and-white camper van. Slowly now, since he knew the answer and because each footfall travelled up his body and thumped on the side of his aching head, he walked out the front door of the hotel and stood there bare-chested, looking at the empty space where the camper van had been.

Positano

‘You’ve been very obliging,’ said Blume, now fully dressed.

The manager stood back as he opened Konrad’s room and waved a generous arm to usher Blume in. Konrad had left his room not just empty but spotlessly clean. He had even made the bed and folded the towels. The manager then helpfully announced, ‘I heard the camper van very early this morning. But it is not my policy to check on the comings and goings of guests, even if they haven’t paid.’

‘You’ve got a credit card number for surety,’ said Blume. ‘I’m sure that helps you sleep through the sound of departing vehicles. What time was it?’

‘Around four.’

‘Right.’ He pushed his arm under the mattress, and swept his hand back and forth. It touched something, a remote control? No, a phone. To lull his controllers into thinking he was still here. Well done, Konrad.

The manager was watching him with interest.

‘Oh, listen, I almost forgot,’ said Blume, ‘I left my weapon in my room. My spare weapon.’ He winked as if this had meaning. ‘It’s in a top drawer…’ He did not even have to bother making up the rest. The manager had almost squealed in delight as he promised to fetch it for him.

When the manager had gone, Blume pulled out the phone from under the mattress. It was switched on. The Telefonbuch contained a short list of contacts, most of them consisting of shortened versions of first names: Max, Rob, Hlmt, Kris, Greg, Bea, Tri, none of which meant anything to him. He pocketed it, and headed to his room, where he told the manager, who was peering under the bed, that he had been mistaken about his weapon. The manager looked up from the floor, his eyes full of disappointment and suspicion as Blume set about stuffing his backpack with his dirty clothes and the copy of the documents he had lifted from Konrad. He then remembered that his suitcase, which should never have left the safety of his home, was in the damned camper van.

He went up to the lobby with the manager, who positioned himself defensively behind the reception desk and glared at Blume. A crackle of gravel outside told Blume, without looking round, that a car had arrived. How many had they sent?

‘Those are my colleagues arriving now,’ he told the manager. ‘Two people, am I right?’

The manager refused to look up.

‘Are they armed?’ whispered Blume in urgent tones, and the effect was immediate. The manager’s eyes lit up and he craned his neck to look behind Blume.

‘I can’t see. Two of them,’ he started retreating towards the back office.

‘They are police not assassins,’ said Blume. ‘I want you to take them down to Konrad’s — the German’s room. Don’t give any indication that I have been confiding privileged information to you. Can you do that?’