Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

“All I said was I had never heard of him,” said Blume.

“You were puzzled by an invented name, Commissioner.” The Colonel wiped some juice from his lips with the back of his hand. “Now let me finish. Let’s say Dosso Dossi instead of the non-existent Colberti. Better?”

“Stop testing and get back to telling, Colonel.”

“Well said, Commissioner. Nightingale would place the easily-spotted Van Dyck fake on the market. When a buyer came forward, he would ask him if he was absolutely sure he wanted the work. Affecting great probity, he would sometimes confidentially reveal to the buyer that he had some suspicions about the authenticity of the work. This served three purposes. The first was to cover himself from liability or any possible setup by us. The second was to insure the buyer examined the painting carefully, including what was under it. Once the buyer looked below the surface and found what he thought was an original by an old master hidden beneath, then he would buy the painting at whatever the asking price was and would usually insist that it had passed all his tests for authenticity. Clever, eh?”

“You said three purposes,” said Blume. “Coverage from liability, persuading the buyer to look below the surface to get to the ‘real’ fake below, and the third?”

“Amusement. Delight,” said the Colonel. “The glee of watching people get trapped by their own greed.”

“And are you immune from the same risk?”

“No. Are you?”

Blume was saved from replying by his phone ringing. He answered it without looking at who was calling, and felt a slight lift as he heard Kristin’s voice.

“Alec, that was an interesting name you gave us. Are you alone?”

“No. I’m sitting right in front of him now.”

The Colonel nodded approvingly. “Getting some background on me? Good work.”

“And now he knows I’m talking about him,” Blume said.

Kristin hesitated, then said, “I’ll call you back.”

“No, tell me now. There must be something interesting that made you call back so soon.”

“He’s ex-secret service. SISDE as it was then. One of the bad apples from the barrels and barrels of bad apples Italy has been producing for years,” said Kristin. “ Deviato as the press likes to say. He’s supposed to be retired. Also he was involved in an interesting way in the investigations into the Moro murder. In a way that involved this embassy. But that’s all I’m telling you on the phone.”

“Is that your romantic way of confirming dinner this evening?”

Kristin paused before replying. “Yes. We need to talk. You were joking when you said he was sitting in front of you, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was,” said Blume.

“Alec, you need to be careful of this guy. He used to be at the center of a lot of stuff.”

“Used to, but isn’t now?”

“Not now, but he’ll still have connections. Don’t let him know you’re on to him.”

Blume hung up, danced his fingers back and forth on the armrest as he considered Kristin’s warning, then said to the Colonel, “So I hear you were in SISDE.”

“I see you have your sources,” said the Colonel. “Can I ask who they are?”

“I’m sure you can find out if you’re all that interested,” said Blume.

“I am interested. But as you have found out this detail, which I was going to tell you about anyhow, I can get straight to the point. Treacy may have written a diary or some notebooks that contain some compromising details, I won’t call them facts, regarding activities from a long time ago.”

“How long ago?” asked Blume.

“Long, long ago. 1978. There used to be a bar on Via Avicenna in the Marconi district. It was a hangout for monarchists, nationalists, patriots, activists. One regular customer was a certain Tony Chichiarelli. He, too, was a forger. He got killed in 1984. Along with his son, who was a few months old. Now Tony Chichiarelli had a good friend called Luciano Dal Bello, and you may come across this name if you decide to start delving into my past, which I really hope you won’t feel the need to do.”

The Colonel paused to allow Blume the opportunity to make a promise. When he did not, he continued, “Dal Bello was a criminal, but he was also an important informer, and I was his contact. Now, another person who used to hang out in that bar was Henry Treacy, who we all called Harry. He was also Chichiarelli’s friend. I don’t know if they worked together as forgers. It doesn’t seem likely, since Chichiarelli specialized in handwriting, signatures, checks, false share certificates, all that sort of stuff. But they knew each other. Chichiarelli knew Nightingale, too. Now, does the year 1978 mean anything to you?”

“Argentina won the World Cup. Crystal Gale and the Bee Gees were in the charts. It was the year of Disco Inferno,” said Blume.

“In its proper place, there is nothing better than bantering good humor,” said the Colonel.

“That wasn’t just to annoy you, Colonel. Those were the things that were important to me then. You may remember it as the year Prime Minister Moro was kidnapped, then executed by the Red Brigades in March. Me, I was a kid in another country. Come to think of it, I probably didn’t even know about Argentina and the World Cup. I’d have picked that up later. I know the name Chichiarelli. From books and police reports, not experience. He was involved in mysterious ways in the disinformation campaign. Didn’t he produce false messages from the Red Brigades, and from that poor bastard?”

“Which poor bastard?” asked the Colonel.

“Aldo Moro,” said Blume.

“Ah, him. Yes. That’s the sort of thing Chichiarelli did. Not under my instructions, of course.”

After a few moments, Blume said, “Well?”

“Well what, Commissioner?”

“I’m waiting for the end of your story.”

“There isn’t an end. Not a proper one.”

“If you handled Chichiarelli, you must know quite a lot about what really happened in the Moro case.”

“No one knows anything,” said the Colonel. “There are too many centers of power, none of which trusts the other, and too many transversal operators like Chichiarelli. Apart from me and a few others, most of the people from then are now dead-or in Parliament, of course. Now Treacy’s dead, too. I just need to see what he wrote. You are quite sure you found no notebooks or diaries or anything of the sort?”

Blume shook his head. He did so with vigor and relish, but felt he might have overplayed it.

“It would be a bad idea to lie to me,” said the Colonel. “Especially now that we are negotiating a possible joint venture that, let me remind you, involves no victims, no loss to the taxpayer, and no betrayal of colleagues. Let’s say the person who would be most upset at the idea of fruitful collaboration without his knowledge is Buoncompagno.”

“I could live with that,” admitted Blume.

“Good. Also because certain works, smallish, easy enough to transport, have been removed from this house and, I regret, not logged properly. It as if they never existed, or as if they were here when you arrived, and vanished during the search you and your inspector carried out. If they were to appear on the market and, say, Buoncompagno were to get a tip-off, and then the records show that the works were never logged by us or you, but you were in here first without a magistrate giving oversight, well then, unjust though it would be…”

“I understand,” said Blume. “That will do.”

“Excellent, so we have a deal?”

Blume remained silent.

“I am going to interpret that as a reluctant and principled yes,” said the Colonel. “Now, I hate to insist, but, in my capacity as your temporary business partner, I find it odd that you’re not interested in finding out more about Treacy’s papers.”