Conor Fitzgerald - The Namesake

Blume cleared the crest of a hill. A narrow stripe of road with two-way traffic stretched out below him, visible all the way down to the black oval mouth of a tunnel cut into a hillside of limestone so blindingly white it hurt his eyes to look at it. A red car travelling towards him came shooting out of the tunnel just as a two-tone camper van disappeared into it.

On the road in Calabria

Blume had never been able to distinguish between the myths and the realities surrounding the Ndrangheta, the Sacra Corona Unita, Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and the Stidda, but at least he knew he didn’t know. Had Konrad, the German who thought he understood Italians and could speak Neapolitan dialect, failed to see the elaborate hoax? The Ndrangheta loved its symbols but kept them internal. A signed piece of paper from Megale would never turn a German federal policeman into a figure the Ndrangheta could trust even for a moment. Surely he knew that?

The road had narrowed further to the width of a country lane. It was going to be like this more or less until the very end. Hundreds of kilometres down to the tip of the boot at an average speed of what, fifty kilometres an hour? Berlusconi had promised a massive bridge at the end of it, connecting Reggio Calabria to Sicily. Presumably the Ndrangheta would build the first span, from the mainland towards Sicily, Cosa Nostra would build the span from Sicily, and they’d never meet in the middle.

He froze his thoughts as a gap opened in the oncoming traffic, and he moved up nine more places. The road now followed a squiggling line and he could not see far ahead. But half an hour later, he thought he saw the camper van, now only half a mile ahead. The phone beside him started buzzing, but he ignored it: he needed two hands on the wheel now. Dipping the right wheels of the car into a ditch on the verge made shallow by the rubble and rubbish that filled it, he managed to create his own emergency lane and pass an entire line of vehicles on the inside. The wheels rumbled and the side panel and fender on the right were taking a hell of a battering, and then he hit an invisibly low divider, but somehow managed to keep going and, after ten minutes, came right up behind the camper van. He swung back into lane behind it, and it was then he saw the yellow-and-black number plate and the ‘NL’ sticker.

Dutch holidaymakers. Was there any corner of the planet that had not been reached by a Dutch family in a caravan? And now that he was directly behind it, Blume realized the van was twenty years too modern but made to look retro-chic. Finally, he accepted that Konrad had gone.

The land flashing by was soft and lush, the vegetation so fertile that it had invaded the verges. He picked up speed and went racing past a sign indicating Sibari. That was on the opposite coast, the Ionian Sea. If it was signposted here, then he had to be passing one of the narrowest parts of the peninsula. It was possible that Konrad had turned off here. It was not the most efficient way to cross the narrow neck of land to the other side, but it was precisely the sort of mistake Konrad would make. Or maybe he would have been unable to resist the allure of the name. The ancient Greek colonists of the town, the Sybarites, used to be renowned for sex, luxury, wealth and power. Sibari had come down in the world, but they were still there, the ancient Greeks, now Calabrians.

A ping followed by an orange warning light told him he needed petrol soon.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled into an Agip service station, handed the keys to the attendant, and asked for a full tank. A blue-and-white estate car of the highway police, with two uniformed officers in it, pulled up beside him. Blume ignored them. The driver waved at him and, when Blume still failed to respond, got out and walked around.

‘Commissioner Blume? We were asked to… um, accompany you.’

Blume paid the attendant and reversed out of the forecourt in the direction of the snack bar. He got out, holding the phone Massimiliani had given him in his hand. The police car made a U-turn and followed. Casually, it stopped just close enough to block Blume’s exit.

The driver pointed at his warped fender. ‘Did you have an accident?’

‘No, no, that’s… collateral damage,’ said Blume. ‘Accompany me where?’

‘Cosenza.’

‘Right,’ said Blume. ‘Are you driving me or…?’

‘It would be good if you were to get into our car. In the front seat, of course, sir.’

‘I can’t drive behind you?’

‘Well, technically…’ The policeman bounced the toe of his boot against the tyre of the police car a few times as he avoided Blume’s gaze. ‘Technically, you’re driving a stolen vehicle, sir.’

‘And to think I just put 70 euros worth of super unleaded in the car. I’ve a good mind to suck it out again.’

Blume opened the passenger door, nodded to the policeman seated there who scowled, but got out and sat in the back. For a moment, he imagined himself kicking the policeman out, leaping into the driver’s seat, and roaring away.

Just as he was about to get in, his phone rang. He put up a finger warning them to wait, cupped the phone to his ear, and wandered off towards the air pumps.

It was Caterina.

‘Can you be quick about this? I’ve got friends waiting.’

‘Still on your top-secret mission, then? Besides getting away from me and avoiding difficult decisions, what else persuaded you to place yourself under the command of a Carabiniere conducting an operation without any apparent judicial oversight? A boyish sense of adventure, was it?’

‘Sometimes, magistrates can be called in on a need-to-know basis. They are not always to be trusted,’ said Blume.

‘You got that right,’ said Caterina. ‘I can tell from the tone of your voice you still want to play it like you’re controlling events. Fine. I just thought you’d be interested to know the magistrate in Milan who’s conducting the investigation into the Arconti case is Ezio Bazza. He’s also looking into the killing of the assassins, which you forgot to mention to me when you found out, so thanks for that.’

‘I wasn’t sure… sorry.’

‘A “sorry”: well, it’s something,’ she said. ‘Meanwhile, another magistrate in Milan, investigating the case of a missing girl, came across Arconti’s wedding ring.’

‘That’s good,’ said Blume. ‘That’s really good.’

‘It gets better. The ring was found in a sequestered construction site belonging to the Mancuso family.’ She let the news sink in.

‘So they have found the site where Arconti was killed?’

‘Almost certainly. The technicians are still working on it.’

‘The property is owned by the Mancuso family?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Mancusos are allied to Megale,’ said Blume. ‘Tony Megale married into the Mancuso family. The wife died of cancer. They had a son…’

‘… called Enrico,’ finished Caterina. ‘He lives with his aunt and uncle in Locri, down the road from where Curmaci’s wife and kids live. Panebianco’s been helping me with the research.’

‘That Mancuso news is definitely interesting,’ said Blume. He picked up the air hose and blasted it at a spider on its way from asphalt to a patch of crabgrass. The spider rolled itself into a ball and allowed itself to be blown away, and Blume found he had just covered his hand in filthy oil.

‘Is it so interesting that it might cause you to doubt your theory that Curmaci is responsible for ordering the death of the namesake? Because from where I am sitting, it looks like Tony Megale or his father is behind it.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ said Blume. He did, but he wanted to hear someone else voice his own thoughts.

‘Were you even listening? The victim was taken to a property owned by the Mancuso family. Tony Megale married into that family. His wife