Conor Fitzgerald: The Namesake

‘All right, then. I am pleased to hear you are happy in your current position.’

‘That is not what I said.’

‘As for me,’ Arconti continued, ignoring Blume, ‘I have stayed away from the anti-Mafia magistrates, but I don’t think they would have me anyway. One needs to come across as a bit more… a bit more…’ He gazed wistfully out the window in search of the word he was looking for.

‘Dynamic?’ offered Blume.

‘Yes… or…’

‘Decisive?’

‘Most of all, you need to be a bit uncaring, which is why I thought of you.’

‘You’re just sore because I called you old. I am actually a very caring person,’ said Blume.

‘People say you are reticent and secretive. Not very clubbable.’

‘I simply believe that you should never tell a friend anything you would conceal from an enemy,’ said Blume.

‘That attitude is what makes you ideal for Mafia work. I’ve seen this happen time and again in investigations, and it has happened to me. You seek a confession from a crime boss, and next thing you know he’s implicated half your colleagues, three dear friends and all your superiors. It takes a special type of person to deal with that. Someone who can survive alone. Once you have a confession, if you get one, you can’t be sure who’s telling the truth any more. Maybe you’re being played by your informer or maybe you have been fooled for years by colleagues you thought you could trust. Capturing a boss is like holding a rabid wolf by the ears as it tries to bite your balls off. You want to release your grip, but really you’d better not.’

He squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ asked Blume after the magistrate had not spoken for a while.

‘Do you ever get the feeling you are moving in slow motion?’

Blume nodded. ‘In dreams all the time. Running away, legs getting heavier and heavier. Something dragging you back.’ He looked at the magistrate who was sitting very still. ‘But not when I’m awake.’

The magistrate lifted his left hand. ‘Do you ever get the feeling one arm is really light and the other really heavy?’

‘If I am wearing a watch, it makes my arm feel heavy and causes my wrist to itch,’ said Blume. ‘And now you’ve reminded me.’

‘No, not heavy,’ said Arconti absently. ‘More like it was full of water…’ His voice trailed off.

‘My speciality is blinding headaches, not heavy limbs,’ said Blume, pulling off his watch and pocketing it. He stared at Arconti, who now seemed to be stroking an imaginary beard, as if he were a doctor diagnosing his own arm trouble.

‘I am stroking an imaginary beard,’ replied Arconti.

‘I see that. You can stop now,’ said Blume.

‘Who is your father, Commissioner?’

‘My father’s dead.’ Arconti knew that, damn it.

‘No,’ said the magistrate, slowly, weighing up Blume’s reply. ‘ “My father’s dead” is one of the initiation responses used by a Russian vor. An Ndranghetista at Curmaci’s level would reply, “The sun is my father”, though there are variations.’

‘Is that what the beard-stroking was about? Were you testing to see if I was an Ndranghetista?’

‘Of course not, Commissioner. I wanted to see if you recognized the symbolism. The imaginary beard is Garibaldi’s. Garibaldi, Mazzini and La Marmora are the three secular saints of the Santa. Apart from all else, Commissioner, including my trust in you and your work as a policeman, racially and culturally speaking, you could never have been a santista in the Ndrangheta. It has to be in your blood.’

Blume shrugged. ‘I just had my blood tested. It’s Mafia-free.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk to this friend of mine about a career change?’

‘The DIA would never have me,’ said Blume.

‘It would not necessarily be the DIA. There are other groups that combat the Mafia from farther behind the scenes.’

‘I would need to think about it.’

‘It’s a solitary life, but you would not mind, I think. Being alone frees the mind; it allows you to explore areas that others neglect, see things that others miss. Don’t you agree?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Blume. ‘In my solitude, I have also seen many things that are not true.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘ Avanti!? ’ called Blume automatically, before remembering where he was. ‘Sorry, Giudice, this is your office. I had no right…’

An elderly man in a blue uniform backed into the office wheeling a trolley filled to overflowing with boxes and binders.

‘It’s no problem,’ Arconti said to Blume and the man shuffled into the narrow space between them. ‘We Calabrians tend to avoid the word Avanti. It’s what drovers and goatherds shout at the beasts of the fields.’ He watched the uniformed porter wipe the sweat off his brow, and carefully retreat from the trolley, lifting a clipboard off the top box. ‘When addressing humans, we prefer to be more respectful. We prefer to say, simply enough, “come in.” ’

The porter continued his balancing act with the files, and when it became clear that nothing was going to fall off unless there was a breath of wind, he looked at the form in his hand and addressed the magistrate.

‘These files are for Magistrate Matteo Arconti. I hope that is you, Dottore?’

‘Yes,’ said the magistrate. ‘That’s my name.’

Rome

Thursday, 27 August

Chief Inspector Panebianco delicately pinched the dead man’s worn identity card between blue latex-covered fingers. ‘As you can see, this guy was called Matteo Arconti. He was reported missing in Milan yesterday.’

Blume nodded. He was marshalling his thoughts and suppressing his shock. He would speak in a moment.

Panebianco allowed a few beats of silence to pass, then said: ‘The victim has the same name as the magistrate you’ve been working with, Commissioner.’

‘You think you needed to tell me that?’ snapped back Blume.

Panebianco continued, unfazed. ‘Same name as the magistrate but not him, right? Just to be sure.’

‘What sort of dumb question…’ He stopped himself. Panebianco was regarding him with the same detached look in his grey-blue eyes that Blume had seen him use for particularly stupid witnesses and suspects. ‘Sorry, Rosario. You were right to ask. No, this is just his namesake.’

‘I agree it was an odd question,’ said Panebianco. ‘I’ve worked with Arconti, and this is not him. But you know the way the dead are always a bit tricky to identify? Best to hear you confirm it, Commissioner. I wonder if he’s related to the magistrate?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Blume.

Panebianco raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, there has to be a direct connection. The body was dumped here outside the court buildings: it’s hardly going to be a coincidence, is it?’

Panebianco seemed to be pushing him for a response.

Blume cleared his throat, and spoke. ‘It’s symbolic… it’s.. They are showing us what they’re made of.’

‘Who? The Calabrian Mafia? That’s the case you were working on with the magistrate. Is this to do with the doctor and the Cuzzocrea brothers?’

‘It’s too early to say,’ said Blume. His rage had subsided almost as suddenly as it had welled up, and was now a simmering and manageable anger, the sort that gave him energy. And deep inside, in a hardly acknowledged part of his soul, there was a feeling of reluctant admiration for the sort of person who could kill for no other reason than that the name of the victim fitted. Murder for a play on words.

‘It’s effective,’ he told Panebianco. ‘This is quite a well-structured act…’ He looked at the splayed-out body, one arm pointing up, the other down as if to say, Here is where I came from, there is where they went.